Chiroptera
by MaximumTwilightRider
Summary: Previously known as Tension rising, and bat kids and bird kids. The First name had nothing to do with story, second was dumb. A band of flying mutants teams up to take down a serious threat to their lives and the flock's
1. Rescued

**Yeah, there are probably about a gazillion stories like this on fan fiction. Oh well, now there can be a gazillion and one. I would like to recommend a story to everyone. SanraitaFang wrote it, and introduced me to the fanfiction site. It's called Syzygy. Read it. Comment on it. Or else bad and terrible things will happen to you. I might even curse your pants…**

Max POV

"Iggy, Gazzy, stop fighting!" I yelled as they playfully attacked each other with hockey sticks. They could be so stupid sometimes. "Seriously guys, the Voice is talking and I need to concentrate, it says this is important!_**(A/N If you don't know what the Voice is, then why the heck are you reading a Maximum Ride fan fiction?!?!?!)**_

The little buggers immediately quieted down. _Okay, Max, there is a School in Canada that the flock has to destroy. It is one of the worst Schools in the world. Even worse than yours. It is in a remote area in a forest near the middle of Quebec. There is a small lake nearby. There are children there, experiments like you, that need your help. In return, they could be some of the best allies you've ever had. Not to mention some of the only._

As you can probably imagine, I wasn't expecting this. Most of the things the Voice said were pretty unexpected. "Max? What did the Voice say?" asked Iggy.

"We have a new mission. There's a School in Canada that we need to destroy. Apparently, there are some kids we have to save. They need our help," I told him.

"Awesome!" said Gazzy, "When do we leave?"

"I'm thinking sometime in the afternoon tomorrow," I told Gazzy.

_No Max, you have to leave tomorrow morning._

"Change of plans, we're leaving first thing tomorrow, right after breakfast, says the Voice," I said, "Flock meeting! Living room!"

After about thirty seconds, everyone from my flock was gathered on the couches and chairs in the living room, "According to the Voice," I told them, "There is a School in Quebec that we need to destroy. There are also some experiments there that are gonna help us, but we have to save them first." _**(Yeah, they aren't going to be much help if the flock doesn't save them.)**_

"Quebec?!" squealed Nudge, "Like, with maple syrup and French clothes and stuff? When do we leave?"

"The Voice says we leave first thing tomorrow," I told her.

The smile that crossed Nudge's face was so big, it was a wonder it even fit onto her head.

Iggy went to go cook supper, since it was getting late. The flock could probably go to be after supper. It was already 8:52. We would probably be done supper by 9:30, and that would be getting late for the younger kids. Even us older kids would need a good sleep.

After a filling supper of stir-fried vegetables and noodles, I ordered everyone to bed. Iggy and Gazzy went to their room, Nudge and Angel to theirs, and Fang and I to ours.

Fang and I were so tired, we got changed into our pyjamas, and were asleep in less than five minutes.

The next morning, I awoke to the loud, obnoxious beeping of my alarm clock, which I had set the night before to 7:00. I groaned and sat up, remembering that we had to leave this morning. "Fang, wake up," I leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the lips to get him moving. It worked.

Fang leaned in to kiss me, wrapping his arms around me. I obeyed for a while, and then went to go wake everyone else up.

I banged on Nudge and Angel's room first, then Iggy and Gazzy's. After five or so minutes, everyone was up and dressed, gathered around the table while Iggy cooked French toast. Much to my delight, they all looked at least as tired as me. Nudge was the one exception; she couldn't have looked more excited if I told her we had won the lottery.

Iggy served the French toast, and I drenched mine in syrup to get my energy up. The flock copied my action. "Where in Quebec is the School exactly?" asked Iggy.

"In the middle," I told him. The Voice had sent me a mental image, "There's a small lake, and it's surrounded with forest."

"How far away?" asked Fang.

"I'm not sure," I answered, "Maybe three, four hours from the Canadian border? A fair distance, so everyone eat _lots_ of French toast. By the way, this tastes great, Iggy."

"Thanks."

We continued to eat in total silence, helping ourselves to seventh and eighth helpings. Being birdkids, we had very high metabolisms, and burned a lot of energy, which we have to replace somehow.

After breakfast, everyone helped wash the dishes, and then we were off, flying over mountains, forest, and, after a while, the Canadian border. Now that we had woken up a bit, we were pretty excited. It had been too long since our last fight to the death, and I couldn't even remember the last time I had knocked an Eraser senseless. _**(Happy thought's, hey, everybody?)**_ Oh, were we ever ready. Gazzy and Iggy had made even more bombs than they usually would have, and they usually make a _lot_ of bombs.

Pretty soon, the air started to get a tiny bit colder, so we flew downwards a little bit, out of the clouds. Flying through the clouds was fun, but after a while, the water vapour starts to stick to your clothes, and the wind makes you chilly.

A little over three hours later, the scenery started to look similar to the images the Voice had sent me. A few minutes after that, and the tiny, bean-shaped lake came into view in the distance, the School right beside it. _There is an air vent near the northeast tip of the School, Maximum. You and the flock will go in through there. Turn left twice, then right, skip the next two turns, and you will be above the room were the experiments are._

_Wow, an air vent, is that ever original! _I thought at the Voice sarcastically. Oh, what do you know? It didn't answer me, what a surprise!

"Okay, guys, we're going in through that air vent. Voice's idea, not mine. I have a sense of originality behind my strategies," I said to the flock.

We made a slow, spiralling descent down towards the little square that was the entrance to the vent. When we landed, Nudge used her ability to move metal to undo the screws holding it down. We lifted it away, and then hopped inside.

Nudge POV _**(Sorry, I kinda forgot that I was going to have different points of view than just Max's. I forget things often.**_ _**)**_

Max climbed inside the air vent, then Fang, then Angel, Iggy, me and, for reasons left unmentioned, Gazzy climbed in last.

Max led us down the tunnel, turning the odd time. I really didn't want to get lost, and couldn't help asking her if we were going the right way, if she was _sure_ we should have turned there, stuff like that. I see what the flock means now about me talking too much.

Eventually, we stopped. Max whispered for me to come up front, and the others squeezed to the side to let me pass. "Can you get the screws?" asked Max in a whisper.

"Yeah, no problem," I told her.

I let my mind sense the metal, until it found the tiny gap separating the screws from their holes. I turned the little screws, making them rise out of the hole, and onto the bottom of the air vent. When Max went to work on quietly lifting the cover, I levitated them into my pocket. At our house, I had a collection of all the metals I had ever tinkered with, dating back to the can of root beer I had first discovered my power on. I let my mind wonder back to that memory.

We had been flying in a plane, and I had ordered a can of root beer. When it came, I reached out my hand for it. I was tired, and wished that it would just zoom right to my hand without me having to reach for it. I was amazingly, utterly, completely astounded when it _did_ zoom to my hand. Everyone gasped. I wasn't sure what had happened, so I blamed it on the plane tilting. Fang set the can back up and I reached for it again. I zoomed to my hand, and the plane _definitely_ hadn't tilted. We eventually came to the conclusion that I wasn't _magnetic_, but I _could_ control metals.

Max stuck her head down through the gap and looked around. After a few seconds she came back up, reversed her direction so her feet dangled down the hole, and hopped through it, landing lightly on the floor below.

Max POV

I looked down through the hole. In the room, there were dog cages along every wall, some stacked three high. About two thirds of them had mutants in them. I retracted my head and hopped down the hole.

_The ones that will help you are in the crates at the end of the room. _

The Voice was crazy if it thought I was only going to rescue some of the creatures in this room. I wouldn't do that even if whitecoats were coming down the hallway right now.

I walked to the front of the room and started unlatching cages. The mutants climbed out two seconds after I'd opened them. Fang hopped down from the vent and started lifting them into the vent, where Nudge and Angel helped them climb in.

Eventually I made it to the row of crates at the end of the room. There were three girls in there, about the same age as me. I noted their appearances, and unlatched their cages. I followed Fang into the vent once they were up there.

_You shouldn't have done that, Maximum. The whitecoats will only catch you that much easier now._

Well, I thought differently. These guys had as much a right to life as I did. And the School would be blown up before the whitecoats could catch us.

I hurried along the tunnel at the end of the little parade. At the end of the tunnel, the experiments were helped out of the vent. We took turns carrying them to the bush, out of bombing range, until they were all gone, except for the three the Voice had said would help us. I sized them up. They were all female. They all had fair skin. They were average height, but one of them was a lot taller. Taller than Fang and I, not as tall as Iggy, but still pretty tall. She had dark brown hair which went to about three inches past her shoulders, brown eyes with a small ring of green around the edge, and a slim build. They were all pretty thin; no doubt from the whitecoats starving them. One of the other girls had dirty-blonde hair that was longer than the first girls. Her eyes were blue-green. The last girl had dirty-blonde hair as well, though hers was browner. Her eyes were blue and green around the outside, with a strip of brown near the center. She was the shortest of the group. "You guys get to come with us," I told them, "Apparently, you can help us."

"I know," said the tall girl, "My Voice told me."

**Well, what do you think? I **_**am**_** a meanie-bum, am I not? Leave it to me to leave you all in suspense like this! I am going to start writing the next chapter soon, but I'm not going to put it on until I get 3 reviews. Go on, click the pretty little button! By the way, 3 reviews does **_**not**_** mean one person typing a review for my story **_**3 **_**times. SanraitaFang, I am talking to you. Oh yeah! 2 022 words! **


	2. Flight

**Okay, thanks for the reviews! Here is the SECOND CHAPTER to my story. Have you read my prequel to The Angel Experiment? I think you should. I really think you should. *Death Glare***

Max POV

"You guys get to come with us," I told them, "Apparently, you can help us."

"I know," said the tall girl, "My Voice told me."

My mind was reeling. Had I heard her right? She had a Voice, too?

"I probably sound crazy to you. See, for a few days, I was really sick; I kept getting headaches and stuff. Not regular headaches, really bad ones. Worse than any migraine. And then when they stopped, there was a Voice in my head. It tells me stuff sometimes. But not when I really seem to need it. It can be annoying sometimes. Sorry, I'm used to talking with these guys," she said, gesturing to the girls beside her, "I forgot you didn't know about it."

I knew I had to of heard her right this time. She had had the exact same symptoms that I did before I got my Voice. "It's okay," I told her in response to her apology, "I _do_ know about it. I have a Voice too. We can discuss it later. The School is about to be blown up. Come on."

Fang, Iggy and I picked up the three girls, who were surprisingly light, and flew them into the bush. Angel, Nudge, and Gazzy followed us. When we were safely hidden, Gazzy and Iggy took off. When they were over top of the School, they each took something out their backpacks. Working together in mid-air, they attached what from here looked like a rope, to whatever Gazzy was holding. As they used the rope to lower it down, I could make out the form of a bomb. It was then that it clicked; the rope was a fuse line. If that doesn't strike fear into your heart, you need to remember that Iggy and Gazzy _usually_ toss the bombs onto whatever they want to explode. This had to be an insanely large bomb if they needed a _fuse_.

Iggy started unwinding the fuse lowly flying back to where the rest of us sat in the bush. "Okay, they have a fuse," I told everyone, "Move back another hundred yards or so."

The three girls we had rescued looked at me like I was crazy, but obeyed nonetheless. Iggy was almost to us now. "Everyone ready?" he asked, a smile breaking over his face.

Without waiting for an answer, he flicked a small switch. Everyone plugged their ears, the three strangers copying us dubiously. A half-second later, there was a mind-numbing, super-sonic, very, very, loud _**BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**_As well as a mushroom cloud the size of Texas. Literally.

In a few seconds, the cloud had all but disappeared. We unplugged our ears. "What was it like?!" asked Iggy immediately.

"Huge!" exclaimed his partner in crime, "Bigger than anything we've ever done!"

Great, now the three girls were probably _sure_ we were crazy. "Sorry," I apologized to them immediately, "Iggy and Gazzy like bombs. I _don't_ know why they decided to go overboard on this _particular _one."

"How did you guys get it to be _big_?" asked the girl with the longest hair.

"We made separate pouches within the bomb so that it had a delayed explosion, also, we used a little bit of nitro. And a secret ingredient," said Iggy to her.

Weird and weirder. These strangers seemed to like bombs as much as Iggy and Gazzy. "Okay," I said, "Now that we're all done talking about explosions, can we _please_ introduce ourselves? My name is Max. This is my flock, Iggy, Gazzy, Nudge, Angel, and Fang. We were created by scientists at the School, just like you. We have 2% bird DNA. That little 2% made a large impact; we have wings and can fly just like real birds."

"Sweet. We should get along just fine. My name's Madysen. This is my colony, Shanyn, and Natalca. We have 4% bat DNA. That little 4% has also made a big impact. _We_ have wings and can fly like real bats. It also messed up our sleep patterns a bit. The labmen had to keep drugging us to get us to sleep like normal humans."

Madysen POV

"Well, that's convenient!" said Nudge, "I meant the part about you guys having bat DNA, not the part about the labmen drugging you, 'cause that isn't convenient, it kinda sucks, actually. By the way, what are labmen? Are they like whitecoats? You can tell me later. It is good that you guys have wings! That means we don't have to carry you guys around all the time. Not that we'd mind, just that it would be a bit of an inconvenience. Like when Angel saw that rabbit getting chased by the wolf and she swooped down and saved it! We had to carry it around until she saw a good spot to put it. I didn't mind, because it was a really cute rabbit, but Fang and Max and Iggy kept on saying how it was just a little rabbit, and it was a waste of our time to save it."

She had seriously said that all in _one_ breath. I wondered if that was her super-human power, I knew I could change an object's structure at will. I could also understand and speak any language I heard, and read and write in foreign or lost languages. Unfortunately, my first talent only worked on non-living things, but it had been very funny when I had heard that one of the Labmen had tried to use the urinal, only to find that it had been changed into a porcelain flower.

"Okay, Nudge is going to shut up now!" said Max cheerfully, "So, do you guys actually know how to fly?"

"No," answered Shanyn, "We don't."

"No problem, we can teach you. It's not that hard."

Max, Fang, and Iggy ripped two long holes in the backs of our shirts, and the three of us gratefully stretched out our stiff wings. They were exactly like a bat's, aside from the fact that they didn't double as forearms, and they had fur all over them, instead of just on the arms and elbows. Mine were dark brown, almost black; they had little flecks of light brown and tan through them as well.

Shanyn's wings were light brown, almost tan, with hints of darker brown through them. They also had shots of the most gorgeous, beautiful silver all through them. Natalca's were tan at the bottom, slowly darkening towards the top, until they were the same colour as mine.

We all walked over to the clearing made by the destroyed School. "So," said Max, "You have to flap as hard as you can, it helps if you jump up a bit when you're going to take off. When you're in the air, keep flapping. Ready to try?"

We nodded nervously. How could she be asking us to fly all ready? Never the less, I started beating my wings up and down furiously, feeling like a complete idiot. I jumped as high as I could into the air, flapping even harder. Very much to my surprise, I stayed up! Not only that, but I was still going up, rising higher with every flap of my wings. Natalca and Shanyn also stayed afloat.

"Awesome job!" shouted Angel, "Try going forward!"

We all tried. It was almost too easy. I rose up higher, and then dove down. It was like floating. I could do this all day long. Shanyn and Natalca were doing aerial manoeuvres around me. The flock laughed, and the younger ones flew up to join us. After a few seconds the older ones came up as well. We all flew in the air, the older ones teaching us new manoeuvres, and the younger ones playing Before we were satisfied, Max announced that it was time to go.

So, of course, we all agreed, and my colony and I started flying to the closest thing we had ever had to an actual home.

**So, what do you think of my second chapter? You had **_**better**_** all be grateful that I didn't wait until I got three reviews. If anyone can think of a better title for my story, PLEASE TELL ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just chose this one because it sounds cool; it actually has nothing to do with my story. I **_**am**_** diabolical, aren't I? *Evil Smile* Please send nice long reviews, or I will curse your pants. Is it really that hard to click a button and type up whether or not you liked my story? If I find that someone read this story and didn't comment on it, there will be a lot of cursing of random foods, numbers, and articles of clothing. *Another Evil Smile* **

**MWAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I SHALL RULE THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!**

**I'm not the **_**least **_**bit crazy, am I?**


	3. Sight

**Hi everyone! I am back! And annoyed! You all better run! Really Fast! Would anyone like to know **_**why**_** I am very annoyed? It's because I found that a whole bunch of people have been reading **_**my**_** wonderful story without REVIEWING AT ALL! This is extremely annoying. From now on, if you read my story, you MUST review it. I don't care if you say it's the stupidest story in the entire world, as long as you review!! I will be paying closer attention to my reviews than ever, and if you don't review, I will curse your pants, all numbers from 4-22 inclusive, and the colour green, especially lime green. By the way, a big thank-you to SanraitaFang, who taught me this marvellous way to tell if people aren't reviewing! On with the story!**

Angel POV

As we flew back home, Max flew up to me. "Do you think we should trust Madysen and her colony?" she asked me, "Could you at least check if they have good intentions?"

I nodded, and listened to the thoughts of the three girls.

_I can't believe I am actually free. This is amazing. I hope the other experiments got out okay._

That was Madysen.

_Should I trust them? They seem nice enough. They can't be bad if they rescued us from that place with all the labmen._

That was Shanyn.

_I wonder where these guys live. I hope it's not too far away. The colony is just learning to fly. I'm already a little tired, and hungry._

That was Natalca

"They all seem nice enough," I told Max, "Actually, Shanyn doubts if _we're_ trustworthy, but she thinks we are. Madysen is amazed she's actually free, and Natalca's hungry. Actually, they probably all are a little.

"You're right," Max said, "They didn't get a big huge breakfast of French Toast like we did. I wonder if they got any breakfast."

"Probably not," I answered her, "By the

"Okay, next town we get to, we'll stop and buy lunch."

Iggy POV

"Iggy," I heard Madysen say, "Can you tell what that little thing down there is?"

Annoyed, I automatically started to answer, "What do you think?" but stopped, remembering these guys didn't know I was blind yet.

"Uh, no, I can't really tell what anything is. I'm, um, well I'm blind," I told her awkwardly, since the only people I had ever had to tell were the flock. Max had always told people ahead of time that I was blind.

"Really? Have you been blind your whole life?" Madysen asked me, just as awkwardly.

"No. You know how birds have really great vision? Well, the whitecoats, I think that's the same as a labman, well, they tried to surgically enhance my vision even more, but they messed up, and made me blind," I told her.

Madysen _laughed_. Laughed. At me being blind. I gawked in her direction. No one had ever been that insensitive. "Oh! I'm sorry!" she instantly apologized, as if it would make a difference, "I'm laughing with relief! I swear I am _not_ trying to be rude, but if you had been blind from birth, Shanyn couldn't help you. Shanyn can heal injuries; it was very convenient back at the School. If you had been blind from birth, it wouldn't count as an injury. As soon as we land, I'll get Shanyn to give you your vision back."

"Seriously?!" I said, "That's awesome! I can't wait! And here I thought you were just entirely insensitive!"

She laughed again and went to go fly by Shanyn. _**(A/N I almost typed in "stand" instead of "fly" then remembered they're thousands of feet in the air. Standing wouldn't work that well.)**_

My entire life I had dreamed of having sight, but they had always been just that: dreams, never to come true. Up ahead, I could hear Angel telling Max what had happened, she had been listening in my mind, apparently.

Shanyn POV

After a few minutes of flying, Madysen came to talk to me. "Shanyn, did you know that Iggy's _blind_?" she asked me.

"What? Are you serious!?" I exclaimed, turning to look at her, and nearly clipping wings at the same time.

"I just went to talk to him, and I asked him if he could tell what this little blue blob on the ground was, but he said he couldn't tell what anything was, because he was blind. But there's good news!" she said as I started to talk again, "He was made blind by whitecoats, which are apparently the same thing as labmen. They tried to make his sight better with an operation, but screwed up and made him blind instead. An operation counts as an _injury_, right? So you can fix it!"

I thought about this. I figured that something caused by an operation would count as an injury. After all, I had healed Madysen and Natalca's ears about a dozen times, when the labmen had tried to improve their hearing. Eyes shouldn't be much harder.

I was disturbed from my thoughts by a clip on the wing from Natalca, who was already the best flyer out of the three of us. "Max says we're gonna be landing soon, at a little town called Huntersville or something_** (It's actually called Huntingdon. My great aunt lives there. I went to see her last summer)**_. What have you guys been talking about?" she asked.

"Apparently Iggy is blind, but it was through a surgery, so I figure I can probably heal him with my power," I told her.

"Okay then. That wasn't sudden at _all_," she said, sarcastically.

"Nope!"

After a quick signal from Max that none of us understood, the flock started to bank in towards a little cluster of lights. Taking it as a cue, the rest of us followed. When we made it to the ground, the colony all landed clumsily, even Natalca. Madysen did a full-out face-plant, taking a large bite of grass.

Natalca POV

After Madysen did a splendid nose-dive, Max came over to us, "You guys will have to wait here for a few minutes until I can get you some proper clothes. If you go into the restaurant like that, you'll attract _way_ too much attention," she told us, referring to the runway-ready hospital gowns we were still wearing from the School.

"Okay," I said, "We'll wait here."

"Wait!" said Shanyn, walking away from where she was helping Madysen up and heading over to Max and I, "I want to fix Iggy's vision first."

"Good idea. Iggy, come here!" Max called.

Iggy immediately came running. "Yeah?" he asked when he got to us. I could here the excitement in his voice.

"I'm ready to fix your eyes," Shanyn told him.

"Okay."

Iggy POV

"Okay," I told Shanyn.

There was a moment's complete silence, in which I was sure that everyone was staring at Shanyn, and then it was like an explosion. There were _colours_ everywhere! The colours matched up exactly with the colony and the flock's positions, and I realized that I was _seeing_ them. With my eyes. It was _amazing_! I couldn't believe it. "I can _see_!" I exclaimed stupidly.

"That was sorta the whole point, Iggy," said Natalca, jokingly.

I looked in her direction. I looked at the place we were at. It appeared to be outside of an old warehouse. Very old. It was missing a few of the boards that made up its structure.

I looked at the sky. It was blue, with a few clouds.

I looked everywhere, and then became aware of Shanyn laughing quietly at me. I glared at her, but not meanly. Mostly I took in her appearance.

She was average height, maybe a little on the tall side. She wore glasses that, surprisingly, considering the whitecoats temper, didn't have any cracks in them. Her hair was dark blonde, and her body was muscled. She was beautiful. But maybe it was just that I hadn't seen anyone in years.

"Iggy? Are you coming with us, or are you gonna sit here staring at Shanyn all day?" asked Max.

"I'm coming," I told her

Madysen POV

I watched as the flock walked away, heading down the streets of the town I now realized was called Huntingdon, thanks to the sign a few meters away that I could see. For some reason, the name Huntingdon rang a bell, but my forgetful brain couldn't figure out why at the moment.

"Shanyn, Natalca, come here," I called out to them.

They immediately headed over. "Do you guys think we should trust the flock?" I asked them, "I know they rescued us, but what if it was just for personal gain?"

"I was thinking the same thing," said Shanyn, "It's like when the labmen rescued me from that car crash, but brought me to the School instead."

"Exactly," said Natalca, "If that's what they plan to do, we _definitely_ shouldn't trust them. But what if they are nice? Then we have to trust them. Madysen, what _exactly_ did the Voice say to you?"

"All it said was: _People will be coming for you tomorrow. They will save you from the labmen, and take you with them._ About it's usual level of helpfulness. Like the time it kept telling me to not use my powers to reshape the dog crates into a little metal marble. Actually, I _did_ try, but it didn't work; the metal was to strong. That was the time I wasted almost all my energy and sat there mumbling to myself for five minutes."

"Well, I think we should trust them, but if they act suspicious or anything, we leave first chance," Natalca said to us.

"I agree."

"Same here," said Shanyn.

"Okay, that's all cleared up," I said, then turned to Shanyn and added jokingly, "By the way, any idea why Iggy was staring at you non-stop?"

Shanyn blushed, which _never_ happens. Shanyn does not blush, ever. The closest she comes to blushing is when her face turns red if she works really hard. That happened a lot at School. Natalca and I kept teasing Shanyn until we heard the distant noises of the flock coming back with our new clothes. Since we had bat DNA, our hearing is better than most, just like the flock had raptor vision, we had crazily good hearing.

When the flock got back, Max handed me a bag, Nudge gave one to Natalca, and Iggy gave one to Shanyn, staring at her the whole time.

Shanyn went into the warehouse to change, I went behind the "Welcome to Huntingdon, Quebec" sign, and Natalca went into a nearby shed. Reaching into my bag, I found several pairs of shorts, two pairs of capris,_** (I'm sorry; I do not know how to spell that word. If anyone can't read that, I mean the things that are crosses between shorts and pants. If I spelled it right, my spellchecker thinks otherwise. Curse technology.)**_ several t-shirts, which I immediately ripped holes in for my wings, some undergarments, a hairbrush, socks, shoes, and a windbreaker. I picked out blue and green board shorts that had Hawaiian flowers on them, and a plain blue t-shirt.

Once I was changed into these beautifully comfortable clothes, and had my hair sorta brushed (by the way, that _really _hurt), I went out to join the flock. Shanyn had already changed, and was wearing faded denim shorts, and a green t-shirt. In a few seconds, Natalca came out, wearing black capris, and a red t-shirt.

"Okay," said Max, "Ready to go to the restaurant?"

**Well that is the next chapter. I promise to have Fax come up very soon. If not next chapter, the one after that. Sorry about the delay. I didn't work on my story for quite a while. There is a reason that I am cursing numbers 4-22 inclusive. It's because those are the math questions I have that are due on the 26****th**** of May. Darn. I hate math. But I am good at it, sorta.**


	4. Home

**Can't think of much to write for an author's note today. I got my math homework done. Yay!! Wahoo!! Leblanc Patates is a real restaurant in Huntingdon and it does have good fries and hot dogs.**

Fang POV

"Okay," said Max, "Ready to go to the restaurant?"

Madysen and her colony nodded. They were probably starving. If they needed as many calories a day as the flock, the whitecoats definitely weren't giving them enough. Actually, considering they had bat DNA, they probably needed even more than us.

As we walked to the diner we had planned on going to, I noticed Iggy slide a little closer to Shanyn. Iggy seemed so much happier now that he could see. Most people would be.

After a few minutes, we came to the diner. The flock had eaten here before, back when we were on the run from Erasers, flyboys, and all that fun stuff. Everyone had been amazed with the fries and hot dogs. Even me, and it's not easy to amaze me. It was an ordinary building. The name was on the front, over the door, with the Pepsi logo on either side. The building itself was green and red, with two stories.

"Madysen, what does 'Leblanc Patates' mean?" I heard Shanyn ask.

"Something about white potatoes?" Madysen answered, "But why would they call it that? It's not really something you go around saying every day."

"It's probably called that because of the fries. You have not_ lived_ until you have tried the fries and the hot dogs here," Max told her, "They are amazing!"

"You speak French?" I asked Madysen, "Where'd you learn?"

"Um…I don't really know," Madysen answered, "One day a labman was carrying a paper written in French, and I just read it. I can also change an objects structure at will, and Natalca can move stuff with her mind. She's not that good at it, but she's getting better."

"Can you read other languages?" asked Gazzy.

"Yeah. I can speak 'em, too. I know Latin, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Atlantian, Inuit, Russian, Italian, Ukrainian, Icelandic, Jamaican, Slovakian, Mandarin, Japanese, a whole bunch of native languages, a whole bunch you've never heard of, Egyptian, lots of dead languages, and I think every language there is, and ever has been."

"Well then _you_ can order lunch!" said Max, clearly pleased, "Last time we ate here, we spent almost twenty minutes trying to use sign language to tell the people what we wanted."

Madysen nodded, and then we went into the restaurant. At the counter, the lady took Madysen's order, and Madysen told it to her in flawless French.

"Bonjour, Madame," said the lady at the cash register, who I could see by her nametag, was called Genevieve, "Ca va tu?"

"Bien, merci," said Madysen, "Peu-j'avoir vingt-sept hot-dogs, douze soudes, six jus d'oranges, et ving-sept frit ?J'ai un fete d'anniversaire chez moi. "

"Oui," said Genevieve.

A few minutes later, Genevieve handed us our food, saying "Ici vous etes."

There was so much, it overflowed off of five trays. She checked the price, and when the digital numbers showed up on the cash register, showing the total price to be $109.96, Max handed Madysen the MaxRide card. Genevieve looked at Madysen when she handed it to her, clearly comparing Madysen's face to the picture of Max on the card. Madysen told her, "Elle ne parle pas de francais, donc j'ai du l'ordre."

Genevieve nodded, then handed us our food. We went to go sit down at a table by the window. The colony was having a hard time not lunging for the hot dogs, by the looks of it. Max divided up the food, giving everyone three hot dogs, three packs of fries, and two drinks. When the colony started eating their food, the flock didn't even try to stop them. Natalca actually ended up choking on her fries, because she couldn't get them into her mouth fast enough.

When we finally left, everyone seemed a lot more energized. Taking off, I saw the little restaurant of Leblanc Patates get smaller and smaller.

After a few more hours of flying, our home came into view. A few minutes later, Max gave the signal for us to start heading down. This time, Madysen, Shanyn, and Natalca recognized it and angled toward the ground again. As we neared the ground, Madysen and Natalca landed with no problems other than a bit of stumbling, but Shanyn did something different. She flew in the direction of the big oak tree in our backyard, and I thought she was going to crash into it, but she stuck her feet out and caught a branch of the tree in the back of her knee, literally landing upside-down in the tree, like a bat. "What the _heck_ was that?!" shouted Max.

"Instinct?" Shanyn guessed, "It was a lot easier than landing on the ground. I don't know why I did it, I just _did_. I wasn't paying much attention to where I was going, and I started to go in the direction of the tree, but I was doing it on purpose, subconsciously. And then I stuck out my legs and landed on the tree. How do I get down?"

"Reach your arms up to the branch your legs are on, yeah, just like that," Iggy instructed, "Now let your feet drop, and hop down."

Shanyn followed Iggy's instructions gratefully, landing lightly on the ground at the end. She smiled at the end, "Thanks, Iggy," she said.

"You're welcome," said Iggy

Shanyn POV

I had no idea what had just happened. I supposed it was an instinct because of my bat DNA, and I didn't know about it because I had never flown before. It had been weird. I felt like I just _had_ to land on the tree. Like I had to breathe, or blink. It wasn't something I could have avoided. I also hadn't been able to get down. Iggy had needed to help me, making me feel like an idiot. An extremely incompetent idiot. An idiotic incompetent idiot. I could go on, and on.

For now, Max didn't seem to care. She ordered everyone inside, and Iggy started to cook supper, since it was almost 7:00. When he was done, I looked at the meal. Madysen and Natalca did as well.

It appeared to be somewhat like what we had eaten at Leblanc Patates. The fries were thicker, and instead of a hot dog, there were strips of crispy meat.

"Chicken fingers and fries," Angel told us, "Chicken fingers are like strips of meat, and they're cooked in a deep fryer so that they get nice and tender on the inside, but really crispy on the outside."

I took a bite of the chicken fingers, since I already knew what the fries tasted like. The chicken fingers were _really_ good! Exactly as Angel had described them. It was as though she could read my mind sometimes. A little bit scary, actually.

"I can," she said.

"Can what?"

"Read you're mind. It's not scary after a little while, you get used to it. I am _not_ a freak!" she said, turning to Max.

"Teasing!" smiled Max, "And _yes_, you are! We all are! I can fly the speed of a jet, Iggy can feel colours, Fang turns invisible, Gazzy mimics voices, Nudge is magnetic, Shanyn heals boo-boos, Madysen speaks languages I've never even _heard_ of, and Natalca…what _do_ you do?"

"I shoot laser beams out of my eyes," she said sarcastically, "I don't do anything yet. But I hope I can do something soon. It's annoying being surrounded by superhero freaks."

"It's okay, Natalca," I said in a mock soothing voice, "Maybe you'll be able to _fly_ one day! How cool would that be?!"

"Oh my God! That would be amazing! I would know, I developed that talent this morning!" she said sarcastically.

Everyone laughed. After we finished eating, Max showed us to the room that the three of us would have as our bedroom. There was a bunkbed one the right side wall, and a couch on the left. "My mom and step-sister visit us sometimes, and this is where they usually stay. For now, it'll be your room."

Max walked out, leaving us to get settled in to our room. There was enough room for the three of us, and the few clothes we had bought today. One of us would have to sleep on the couch. Hmmm. Madysen and I could probably join forces and make Natalca do it.** (That's for not reading my story, Natalka!! Ahhh, sweet revenge.) **After a few minutes to get our stuff in the dresser, we went join the flock in watching a movie in the living room.

The movie, called Shanghai Knights, was really good. It was also pretty long, so that by the end, everyone was yawning, and my head was resting on Iggy's shoulder. He had slyly draped an arm around me sometime during the movie, but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to care.

Finally the end credits came on, and Max told everyone it was bedtime. Gratefully, I staggered to my room, pulled on a pair of pajamas, then crawled into bed, ready to catch up on much needed z's.

Max POV

After the movie, Fang and I walked like zombies to our room, changed into pajamas, and climbed into bed. Before we could fall asleep, Fang rolled me over to face him, wrapping his arm around my waist and pressing his lips to mine. Immediately I surrendered, wrapping my arms around his back and locking his body against mine. After a few more minutes of passionate kissing, we ended up with me lying on top of him, tracing my fingers across his chest, which, thanks to my zombie-like state while changing, was bare. He had left his shirt on the floor while I had changed.

Eventually, we decided it was time to get to sleep.

**That's it for today. Please, please send reviews! I'll beg! I'll grovel! I think that's the same as begging. I'll do **_**anything**_**!!! Just send me beautiful reviews!!**

**I finally put some Fax in the story. Satisfied, SanraitaFang? Of course not, you're very greedy. Ooh! I know a good threat! Send reviews or I will no longer write any Fax! EVER!! Mwah hah hah!! I am evil! No math homework today!! Trust me, that is a rare treat. One more thing. VERY IMPORTANT!! My story will be renamed Bats and Birds in ONE week. So that's June ummm. The first wednesday in june, or sometime around then. READ THAT AND UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS. If you did not understand it, ask someone for help.**


	5. Shifter

**Hi! I'm sick as I'm writing the author's note, so I don't have to go to school. I have a sore throat, and a bit of a headache, but I'm starting to feel better, so I think I'll go in the afternoon. For now, I write my story. Hmmm, I wonder if me being sick has anything to do with staying up till 3 am on Friday night, then 11 pm on Saturday night. Just some of my crazy random thinking. SanraitaFang, I have another incident where people can't tell ages at **_**all**_**. I was mistaken for a stay-at-home mom by a telemarketer. "Do you work full-time, part-time, or casual?" "." "Are you a stay-at-home mom?" "I'm in junior high!" "Oh…Are your parents there?"**

Shanyn POV

In the morning, I woke up to the glow of the rising sun coming in through the window. For a second, I was incredibly confused. My room didn't have any windows. And I was in a bed, not a dog crate. _Where the heck was I?_

Opening my eyes, I looked around. There_ was_ a window, with some deep blue curtains around it, dimming the sunlight. I recognized the round, almost human figure of the shadow caused by the tree outside. On the opposite wall there was a brown fold-out bed-couch, and on the brown couch, Madysen was sleeping. Looking at my own bed, I saw a blue comforter, tangled up with some blue sheets with narrow diagonal stripes on them.

I looked down. I was on a bunk-bed, and Natalca was on the lower bunk. Hmmm. Oh! I was at Max's house. Now I remembered. That had sure taken me a while.

Looking over at the luminous digital clock, I saw why everyone was still asleep. It was 6:00 am. Groaning, I rolled over, curled back up in the nice, warm comforter, and went back to sleep.

* * *

Hunter of the Dawn POV

As I peered in through the slightly opened curtain, I saw the girl in the top bunk wake up. I noiselessly ducked down, praying she hadn't seen me. If she had, my mission was done. After a few minutes with my back pressed against the side of the house, I dared to peek over again. The girl had gone back to sleep, her back facing towards me, her front facing the wall. Apparently she either hadn't seen me, or thought I was a dream. The two times I had been seen, I had been mistaken for a nightmare. And for good reason. I was everyone's worst nightmare.

My work was done for the night. I had seen where the girls slept. Tomorrow I would survey the house, looking for entrance passages, fire escapes, anything I could use to get in. I would take a few days to plan my strategy, and then I would strike.

* * *

Madysen POV

Yawning, I stretched out, then curled back into my warm fetal position. This bed was so warm and comfortable. I realized that I had been woken up by a knock on the door, and Max calling to us that it was breakfast in 10 minutes. Iggy was making pancakes. Pancakes! I hadn't had pancakes in forever!

Hopping out of my bed/couch, I hadn't succeeded in making Natalca sleep in it,** (Thanks for finally reading my story, Natalka!)** I ran to the dresser and pulled out a pair of denim shorts, a reddish-purple t-shirt, socks, and undergarments. Ducking into the little bathroom, I tossed Shanyn and Natalca each a bath towel. Getting my idea, they pinned the towels over Natalca's bed, creating a makeshift change room. I used the bathroom, and Natalca and Shanyn used the change room. By the time I came out of the bathroom, Natalca was changed, and Shanyn was almost done in the change room. As soon as she got out, we literally _ran_ to the kitchen, only to discover that the pancakes weren't even _done_ yet! With overdramatic sighs, we flopped down on the couch. Max came to sit by us. "That was fast!" she said, "I'm used to waking up Nudge, who still hasn't come out of her room, even though I told her to almost fifteen minutes ago. The pancakes won't be done for at least 20 more minutes. You girls should brush your hair. You look like Godzilla's girlfriends."

So, in order to pass the time, we went to the bathroom and brushed our hair. Of course I got to go in last. Natalca got first, thanks to a fair bit of punching and kicking, and Shanyn got second, again, _lots_ of violence involved, as well a bribe to help me steal bottom bunk from Natalca tonight. After about seven minutes it was _finally_ my turn to go in. I used the toilet, washed my hands, and then reached for the hairbrush. I looked up towards the mirror, mentally preparing myself to see the tangled blob of hair on my head. But what I did see was _nothing_ at all like my mental image. My face was the same shape, but the skin was a rich, smooth tan. My eyes were as bright a blue as you could go, with a strip of green around the center. My lips were thin, but still very red, and I had jet-black, perfectly straight hair. Through my slightly open mouth, I could see bloody, pure white fangs. The creature in the mirror smiled, even though my face was frozen in shock. It took my brain a half-second to recognize what I was seeing, since I had only ever seen them from far away. After that half-second, I had backed against the far wall of the bathroom, hyperventilating. "There's a Shifter in the mirror!" I screamed, hearing fear make my voice crack.

In a second, Shanyn and Natalca had run into the little bathroom. "Where?" they said, sounding as panicked as I felt.

"In the mirror," I said, "It was my reflection in the mirror, but it looked like a Shifter."

At that minute Max came into the bathroom.

Max POV

I had heard Madysen scream something about something in a mirror, and was instantly reminded of when I had seen my own reflection as Eraser-Max. Remembering how it had scared me to death, I ran to the bathroom. Inside, I found all three bat-girls. Madysen was white-faced and terrified. Shanyn and Natalca were standing by her, looking confused, and just as scared. "What happened?" I asked, radiating authority.

"I looked in the mirror, and there was a Shifter in there. It was still my face, but it was in Shifter form," she said, starting to calm down a little.

Yup. This sounded just like when I had been Eraser-Max. "Madysen, you come with me for a second. Shanyn, Natalca, she'll explain to you after," I said.

Madysen followed me out of the bathroom, down the hall, and into mine and Fang's room, where, of course, Fang was sitting on the bed, checking something on his blog. "Out," I told him.

He looked at me and Madysen questioningly, but packed up his laptop and left the room. Turning to Madysen, I asked her, "What happened exactly? Every detail."

"I went to the washroom, and when I looked into the mirror, there was a Shifter-"

"What's a Shifter?" I interrupted.

"They're like ultimate predators. If the labmen, you guys call them whitecoats, want something really bad, they send a Shifter to go get it. Shifters can change their form to these monster things. They're the size of a bear, but they don't look like a bear at all. They can change their fur colour. I've seen black, brown, tan, giraffe spots, tiger stripes, leopard spots, and white. Their bodies are sort of like a panther, or a mountain lion. They have amazingly good senses, and they have dragon wings, so we won't be able to fly away from them," she said, a look of genuine fear entering her eyes.

"Okay," I said, "Sometime today I'll have to call a flock meeting and you guys can explain exactly what you know about what's happening at the School these days. We've been a little out of touch lately. In the meantime, what do Shifters look like in human form?"

She considered for a moment. "They look almost normal, but they're always female, don't know why, and they have straight hair. Their hair changes, just like they're fur, but they can only do normal human colours. And their eyes are _really_ bright. In the mirror, my eyes were electric blue, and they had a strip of lime green around the middle, but they don't always have to be normal colours for the eyes. I've seen red, purple, orange, yellow, and pink. If it's a colour of the rainbow, one of them has it for their eye colour. Their skin is also tanned, and they have cat fangs. Like the kind jungle cats have, only not as big."

She had given me a pretty thorough description. If I saw one, I would know what it was. "Okay, so about seeing one of them in the mirror. I don't know what's up with that. But I do know the same thing happened to me once," I told her, "Only I saw myself as an Eraser. Wolf-human hybrid."

She stared at me in shock. "Seriously?" she asked.

"Yeah. Scared the crap outa me, too."

Madysen laughed, and then said that she was going to go see Shanyn and Natalca and tell them what was up, and that she wasn't crazy. At least not 100%.

By the time she was done telling her friends, Iggy's breakfast was done. To everyone's amazement, Iggy had actually _burnt_ the pancakes. "What's up with you, Iggy?" asked Gazzy, "You never burn anything!"

"It's my first time cooking and actually being able to _see_ what I'm making. It's kinda confusing!" He answered, "It made no sense at all."

"If you're gonna be messing up because you have the advantage of sight, maybe we should appoint a new head chef," I teased him.

"First time mistake only," he promised.

Even though the pancakes were burnt, we all had fifths. After that, I decided to call that flock meeting I so very needed to call. "Everyone in the living room!" I shouted.

After a few seconds, the flock and the colony was piled into the couches and chairs of the living room. Iggy was plonked down beside Shanyn, one arm over her shoulder. I raised and eyebrow at him but didn't say anything. I knew he would make his move pretty soon "Okay," I said, "If I had a dollar for every little tidbit of info the colony knows that the flock doesn't, I'd be rich. Heck, it doesn't even need to be a dollar. If I had a _penny_ for every bit of info I'd be rich. So the colony is going to tell us what they know about themselves, and we're gonna share our history with them. Anyone can start anytime."

Of course Nudge was the first one to volunteer, "We escaped from the School a few years ago, and the Erasers chased after us. Erasers are like, wolf-human hybrids. But every time they came, we beat them up, and then Jeb, Max's dad, found us a home in the mountains. And we lived there for a few years, but the Erasers kidnapped Angel, so we went after them. On the way, Max flew down to help someone, but she got shot in the wing, so she went into the house of the girl she'd helped, and the girl, Ella, her mom ended up being Max's mom, but we didn't find out for a long time. Eventually we saved Angel and then, uh, we brought her back home. After a few more years we got to go to Antarctica and there were these freaky people there that kidnapped us and wanted to sell us somewhere, but there was a hurricane, and they died. And Angel's dog, Total, who we got a few years ago, fell in love with this malamute dog, Akila. They're away on their honeymoon right now. Total behaves more like a person that a dog. He can talk and fly, too. And then a few months later, Max's mom, Valencia Martinez, got kidnapped and we had to go to army training and we passed in like, a day. So then we went in a submarine into the ocean to go save her. But there was a big sea monster thingy whose mind Angel could read, and all he was thinking was like, kill, revenge, stuff like that. But Angel befriended him and named him Gor, and then he helped us rescue Dr. Martinez, and then Total proposed to Akila after a few more weeks, and she apparently accepted, so then they got married two weeks ago and are on their honeymoon right now. They get back in another week," she concluded happily.

She had just summed up our entire life in one really long speech. She amazed even me sometimes. "Wow, Nudge, that was our entire life you just said. Now it's your turn," I said, turning to the colony.

Madysen started. "We didn't actually meet at birth. We came to the School a few years ago. I think I was maybe Angel or Gazzy's age. Natalca was there before me, she had been there for about two months, and then Shanyn came after maybe three weeks. So, I guess, would it work best if we each just tell our own stories?" she asked, turning to her two friends.

"Yeah, probably," said Natalca, "I'll start, since I came to the School first. When I was seven, I went to the zoo for a field trip, and I was watching the lions, and the gate was open. Since they were so pretty, and since I was seven, and didn't know that they would most likely rip my head off, I went in the enclosure. A labman was apparently watching me. After a few seconds, the alpha lion saw me and started to attack me. He scratched my legs, my back, and I think he might have broken my arm.

"The labman had a tranquilizer gun with him, and he shot the polar bear, and took me to the School. I don't know what happened then, I fainted as soon as we were out of the enclosure, but when I woke up, my arm was splinted, and not very well I might add. When I woke up, I was in the dog crate, and there were two little stumps growing out of my shoulder blades. In about a week, they were all the way grown into these babies," she concluded, flipping out her enormous wings.

"So, you didn't have wings grafted onto you?" asked Fang.

"No, none of us did."

"That means the whitecoats have gotten even more advanced, now they can grow stuff on you," I said.

"Sort of," Shanyn corrected, "They can only do it if some of the bone's missing, and otherwise they have no foundation to grow it on. I overheard them talking once."

"Good to know," I said sarcastically, "Does Madysen want to go next, since she was the next one to arrive at the School?"

"Sure," she said, and started her story, "I was tubing with my friend Taelyr, **_(Pronounced Taylor)_**and the boat driver, another camper we had met, was going really near these rocks. He had done it a gazillion times, so we weren't worried about it. He would go to the rocks and swing us around really fast, then go the other direction. Only this time when he did it, the rope, which was tested for over 5000 lbs. even though the two of us at the time weighed less than 200, snapped.

"The two of us got flipped about twelve feet above the water, and then landed in the rocks. It really hurt. I think I broke my left leg, and I got a really big, deep, cut on my back, and I hit my head.

"I saw a man come and pick me and Taelyr up, and put us in the back of a van, then I fainted. When I woke up, well, pretty much the same story as Natalca, only I had someone to tell me what was happening. I don't know what happened to Taelyr, but I don't think she survived."

"She did," said Angel, surprising everyone.

"What?!" said Madysen, disbelief written over her face.

"Taelyr survived. She went to the School in England. They were doing different experiments there, and they needed a test subject," Angel explained.

"Are you sure Angel?" asked Gazzy.

_Max, she's right. You should go to Oxford._

Ahh. The sweet sound of the Voice. I hadn't heard from it since yesterday. _Good to hear from you, Voice. Now, how did Angel know about Oxford?_

No answer. There never was. "Angel," I asked her, "Do you have a Voice or something? You're seriously starting to freak me out. How did you know Taelyr was in Oxford?"

"The same way I knew the password for the MaxRide card was 'mother'. It was just one of the first thoughts that came to my mind."

"If you say so. In that case, we leave at 1:00 sharp. Everyone go pack what you need. If we're crossing the ocean, we're gonna have to take a plane," I said.

The flock groaned. That's me; take the fun out of everything. "I'm sorry, guys, but the Madysen, Shanyn, and Natalca aren't the greatest flyers yet. They just learned how yesterday, and they still have to learn to land properly," I said, with a little glance at Shanyn, who stuck her tongue out at me.

"Go pack. Shanyn, you can tell us you're story on the plane."

**Wow! That's my longest chapter yet! On Microsoft word, it totals just over 7 pages, with a total of 3044 words. And that's including the stuff written after this sentence. WAHOO!!!! Oh, and by the way, if you try to search my story, but nothing comes up, it means the 6****th**** chapter is up, and I have re-titled it Bird-Kids and Bat-Kids. I **_**finally**_** came up with a new title for my story. Lots to digest in that chapter, sorry. For some reason, though, I don't think anyone really cares. Especially not SanraitaFang. Oooooh, will they save Taelor? Is she still alive? Will the Hunter of the Dawn attack? Will Shifters attack? Is Shifter a good name for the bad guys? Technically they would be bad girls…**

**I AM STILL BENT ON TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WILL RULE IT ONE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MWAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM SO EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! **

**I LOVE EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! **


	6. Oxford

**Assuming that I carried through with my plans to rename my story, congrats on finding it! If I didn't carry through with my story, it most likely means that I couldn't figure out how to do it. This also means my **_**fabulous**_** computer skills have disappeared to somewhere mysterious. Here is chapter #6. SanraitaFang, if you don't start typing your butt off, I'm gonna be caught up to you in #'s of chapters. By the way, I **_**love**_** creative hangman. It's so much fun. Right SanraitaFang?**

Natalca POV

It took me barely any time to pack All I had to pack was clothes, hairbrush, toothpaste and toothbrush. That was all I owned. Once I was done, I took the backpack I had borrowed from Max out to the living room. Shanyn was already done packing. Madysen was almost done. "I still don't get how Angel was able to tell that Taelyr's still alive. That's crazy," I said to Shanyn, since it was awkward just sitting there, "That kid scares me sometimes."

"Don't worry, she scares me to," Shanyn told me.

"I'm not scary!" a small voice called from down the hall. Shanyn and I looked at each other and laughed.

Just then, Max and Gazzy came into the room, backpacks slung over their shoulders. "I'm gonna go pack some snacks for the flight. Well, both flights," Max said, referring to the fact that we would be flying by wing to the airport in New York, and by plane to Oxford.

The only bad thing about our flight was that we would have to wait for an hour before boarding the plane. Even though the plane _always_ arrives late, you have to be there way before it comes in, for some reason. The world has no sense.

After about five more minutes, everyone was packed. Max led the way outside, and gave us a refresher course on take-off. It was much easier this time, since we were taking off from the balcony instead of flapping our way into the sky from the ground. Once we were in the air, it was pure heaven. Flying wasn't that hard.

Hunter of the Dawn's POV

Crap. No, worse than crap. Super-crap, ultimate-crap, crazy-crap, crap-of-the-century. They had left. To _Oxford._ They had left a note on the door, addressed to Total and Akila, saying that they were in Oxford, and the key was behind the loose board in the stairs by the garage. **(No, SanraitaFang, this time the idea was original, not taken from my life like the beige Honda. That also means that trying to break into my house is a no-go.) **This sucked. I was going to have to wait so much longer to hunt them if they didn't return soon. Maybe I could kidnap Total and Akila (gosh these guys had weird names) and then hold them hostage to make the hunt more interesting…

Yes, that was what I would do. I knew I wouldn't go after them. I don't chase my quarries halfway around the globe. That's for the less-advanced folk. My prey always comes back to me.

Max POV

Once we got to the airport, I was all nerves. I had to keep track of eight people besides myself, get the people I was keeping track of to follow me, and, biggest challenge of all, keep Shanyn and Natalca from killing each other.

Eventually we found gate B7, which turned out to be on the other side of the building. We made it there with five minutes to spare. Oh, how I love the fact that Angel can control minds. It made it a lot easier to get our tickets, without going into too many details. I think you can figure out what happened.

By the time we actually got on the plane, it was Fang's job to keep me from killing someone. Have I ever before mentioned how much I hate big, flying junks of metal that, as I have said many times before, by the laws of aerodynamics and all that fancy stuff, should _not_ be able to fly. They don't even flap their wings! And don't try to explain to me how the hell they work because I will throw a fit. If I say something shouldn't work, it shouldn't work, end of story.

I was distracted from my mental rant by Madysen jumping six feet in the air when the plane started to move. "Don't like planes?" I asked.

"They shouldn't be able to fly," she said through gritted teeth.

"I'm with you there."

"How long did you say this flight was?" Natalca asked me from her seat by the window.

"Almost eight hours," I answered her.

The entire flock groaned. Myself included. Despite having a different DNA than us, Madysen, Shanyn, and Natalca shared our enthusiastic dislike of airplanes.

After about an hour of rock, paper, scissors, fast mouth, tongue twisters, concentration, creative hangman (The colony's idea. You don't put your person at a gallows. You put it in all sorts of dangerous positions: about to be sat on by an elephant, hit by a car, gun pointed at them, surrounded by Erasers, all sorts of fun stuff.) And lots of other time keepers, a flight attendant came by, offering us anything to eat/drink. I asked her for a few dozen bags of chips, and the same amount of drinks, and she stared at me like I was crazy, but returned after five minutes with one of those cardboard boxes full of chips, and several twelve-packs of Fruitopia, Coca-Cola, and Sprite. I distributed the snacks, and we went back to our games with our seating groups.

After the rest of the seven hours had passed, the plane _finally_ started to descend. This time it was Shanyn who jumped a foot in the air. "Is the plane crashing?" she asked, genuine fear in her voice.

Iggy laughed, then answered, "No, it's landing."

"But it's going down so fast!" Shanyn protested.

"For some reason, if it doesn't go fast it falls out of the sky. Would you prefer that happen?" Iggy responded.

Shanyn shook her head. After a few seconds of staring out the window, she asked, "Is it going fast enough?"

Iggy glanced at the built-in TV in the back of the seat in front of him, which showed some of the stats of the plane, "We are currently travelling at over 500 mph, so I assume we're going fast enough. Max, even with her turbo drive, can only go about…250?"

"And that's in a dive," I responded.

Shanyn relaxed slightly. After a few more minutes, the plane touched down with a bump that made a jolt of adrenaline rush through my body. Then the turbines went into reverse, which makes this really loud noise that sounds like the engines are falling apart, but is really used to slow down the plane, and Madysen, Shanyn, and Natalca jumped into the air and looked around, with various versions of "What the _hell_ was that?" and signs of nervousness and panic.

"They put the turbines in reverse to slow down the plane, which makes a really loud noise. Of course, it would make more sense to just make a longer runway, but these guys have no brains," I told them, "Calm down! The flight is over! Be happy!"

We were unbuckled long before the seatbelt sign went of, so we took that sign as the 'get out of your seats as fast as you can and run to the sweet freedom of the great outdoors' sign, and barrelled for the almost open door. Seven _very_ long seconds later, the flight attendant, same one who had given us the snacks, okayed us to go through, with another look that signalled she thought we were crazy.

But oh! The sweet, solid ground! It was wonderful. Magnificent!

Once everyone was out of the plane, I steered them instantly towards the exit. We didn't stop at the baggage pick-up, since our only bags had been our carry-on backpacks. As soon as we were out of the airport, I said, "It's almost 9:00. We'll stay in a hotel for a while, then go early in the morning and destroy the school. Iggy, Gazzy, how many bombs can you make in that amount of time?"

Iggy smiled, a good sign, and replied, "More than we'll need."

I didn't push him for an exact number.

Iggy POV

Oh, _yes_! I hadn't made a bomb since, ummm. Oh, Yesterday. Oh well, a few more couldn't hurt. Or maybe more than a few. Hee Hee Hee.

"Do we have to stay in a hotel?" Madysen asked, and I instantly saw where she was going, "Can't we just go and rescue Taelyr, _then_ check into a hotel and stay the night?"

"That won't work," said Fang, "Flyboys and Shifters will be after us in seconds. We can't just check into a hotel when we're on the run. Taelyr's been waiting for almost seven years. She can wait a little longer. That is-"

Even though he had cut off, we could all tell that he was going to say 'that is if she's still alive'. Madysen nodded solemnly, then followed Max to a street kiosk, where they grabbed a map and lead us to the nearest hotel. The nearest hotel also happened to be a familiar name: Days Inn.

When we got there, Madysen ordered four adjoining rooms and a fold-out cot, speaking in a talented British accent, so that we didn't attract any more attention than necessary. Max gave me, Nudge, and Madysen a room key, and kept one for herself. "Everyone who has a key pick one person to share a room with," she said.

I quickly went to Shanyn, "Do you want to share with me?" I stuttered.

"Sure," she said, sounding slightly more confident than I did.

Nudge went with Angel and Gazzy, Madysen and Natalca went together, and, big surprise, Fang and Max took the last set of room keys. As we went up to our rooms, I saw Madysen staring at a small plate of cookies sitting on a table in the entryway. I could almost see her mouth watering. On sudden impulse, she ran back down the hallway towards the small plate of cookies, took the lid off, and popped one in her mouth. "Mmm! They're chocolate chip!" she said, a look of pure ecstasy on her face.

Of course that got Max over there as well. She never turns down a chocolate chip cookie. As soon as she put the cookie in her mouth, she frowned, and then turned to the lady at the reception desk. "Are these homemade?" she asked.

"Yes," the lady said in her British accent, "One of our employees has a cousin at the nearby bakery. She gives us several batches a week."

Max nodded. Everyone else had to take some cookies then. After I had mine, I had to admit, they were pretty good. Not as good as Dr. Martinez's though.

We went upstairs to our rooms. They were pretty nice, other than the fact that they only had one double bed per room. What a rip-off.

I went to go watch a few minutes of TV while Shanyn went in the shower. I think most of the girls were having a shower. I could hear water running in Max's room, and Madysen and Natalca's. I knew Nudge would never pass down the opportunity to have a shower.

A few minutes into my show, Madysen's shower cut off. After another minute, it started back up again as Natalca took her turn. After that came Max's, Shanyn's, and then Nudge's. Angel took her turn after Nudge came out of the washroom. Through the open door in the room next to me, I saw Madysen come out in her pyjamas. After that, Shanyn came out and joined me on the bed to watch Mythbusters. A few seconds later, Natalca's shower cut off.

All of a sudden, there was a loud _thunk_ from Natalca's bathroom. I quickly got up and ran to the room next to mine, Shanyn right behind me. Going to the bathroom, I saw that the door was already open and Madysen was kneeling by Max, talking to her in a worried voice, "Natalca! What's wrong? Can you hear me?"

As we came through the door, Shanyn panicked when she saw Natalca on the ground, propped up against Madysen's leg, with her eyes partially closed and her mouth hanging open.** (She looks funny! She's not dead, don't worry.)** Shanyn went down on her knees to try to wake Natalca up, waving her hand in front of Natalca's eyes and patting her face.

Max came in through the door and stood beside me. "She's having a vision; bring her to that big chair by the bed."

Madysen and Shanyn picked Natalca up and carried her out to the big burgundy** (Hey! They both start with B! Big burgundy…Banana! I'll try to act normal for a while. There's no burgundy banana, I apologize. Sorry, I'll quit interrupting for at least three paragraphs now.)** armchair and laid her in it. "The Voice says she's gotten her special talent now. She can see scenes from the future that will happen."

Natalca groaned, and her limp form sat up in the armchair. "What the hell was that?" she asked.

"A scene from the future," Max answered, giving the same explanation she had given us, "What did you see?"

"A whole bunch of really fast pictures. I think I saw the room where the labmen are keeping Taelyr. She was leaning against the wall of her cage, and there was a boy in the cage beside her, he was leaning against the wall that was beside hers. They were both crying. There was a sign on her cage. It had a big picture of an X on it, and there were smaller letters that said: Failure, slated for neutralization at 1100 hours. What does that mean?"

"It means they're going to kill her at 11:00," Max answered, a fine note of urgency in her voice, "Was there anything in the room that you could see that had the date on it?"

Natalca shut her eyes and concentrated, "One of the computers had the calendar function up, and it said it was the 16th of August. And the time was 10:30 at night. What's the date today?"

"It's the 16th. And it's almost 10:00 at night. We've gotta go _now_. We'll leave the younger kids at the hotel with Fang. Iggy, Natalca, Madysen, Shanyn and I are going to go to the School and save Taelyr."

We all nodded. Madysen's face had turned the colour of undercooked oatmeal. Max got up and went into her room to tell Fang what had happened. When she came back, she led the way out of the room and to the stairs. We climbed to the top of the four-story hotel, and then out onto the roof, where we did an up-and-away.

Taelyr POV

I leaned against the back of my cage, staring aimlessly at the door. The clock on the computer, which I had looked at a few seconds ago, said that it was 10:30, which meant the whitecoats were coming soon to take me away.

The whitecoats called me a failure because I had a mind of my own. All the other experiments that they considered 'successes' were basically programmed to obey their every order. I wasn't programmed that way, so they had decided to kill me.

Just then, the door I was staring at opened, and a whitecoat walked in. He was carrying a clipboard in one hand, and a taser in the other. He walked over to my cage, and opened the door. "No!" my boyfriend, Wyll, shouted at him, "You can't take her!"

I backed to the corner of my cage, trying to get away from him. He reached in and pulled me out by my hair. I sucked in a breath at the pain, but refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry out. "Let go of me you filthy-" I began, but cut off as he zapped me with the taser. Oh my God that hurt.

The whitecoat zapped me again, just for the fun of it, and then dragged me out the door. "Taelyr!" I heard Wyll cry as the idiot dragged me out of the room.

I tried to kick the whitecoats lights out, but whenever I tried, the taser was always in the way. I got at least seven shocks on the short trip to the operating room. The whitecoat opened the door, and laid me down on the table. Before I had time to struggle, he had done up the heavy metal clasps around my arms, legs, stomach, and neck. If he killed me, I would find a way to come back to life and then I would kill him right back.

Trust me, I struggled as much as I could, but the whitecoat stuck me with a needle and in a few minutes, I couldn't even twitch my fingers.

The whitecoat did a lot of tests, which meant a lot of needles. I knew I only had a few more minutes to live. I didn't have any special talents that could get me out of this room. Wyll could use his if he were here. Now I felt terrible. I was deserting will. I was a crappy girlfriend. I loved Wyll as much as he loved me, and I was deserting him.

I couldn't move, but I could hear the sounds around me. And they were horrible. I could hear the steady, yet very fast, beeping of the heart-rate monitor. I could hear the scratching of the whitecoats pen. I could here the sounds from other rooms in the School. I wanted to leave.

The whitecoat stopped scratching away at the paper with his pen. He walked over to me and slipped a gas mask over my face. As his hand came closer, I saw the time on his watch read 10:50. This was it. I tried not to breathe, but you can probably guess how much of a success that was. After a few breaths, I started to get really tired. A few more and I felt my eyes closing. A few more and I fell asleep.

Madysen POV

Oh, God. They were going to kill Taelyr in less than and hour. My eyes were searching the city for any signs of something that might be the School. Now would be a really good time to hear from my Voice.

"Does anyone see anything?" I heard Shanyn call out.

We all gave varying versions of "no". Even after fifteen minutes, all we could see was shops, garden squares, and houses. There were _no_ buildings that looked like a School. We fanned out, covering a larger range, going almost all the way to North Hinksey Village.** (Yes, that's its actual name. I did my research. *Smug grin*)** It had been almost a half an hour since we'd left the hotel, and the labmen were known to work ahead of schedule.

_Go to the sewer cover in the botanical gardens. This School is located underground._

Well that could certainly come in handy. "I know where to go!" I shouted gleefully, "Follow me."

Everyone immediately gathered around me as I flew towards the center of the village, my brown wings pumping furiously. "I already looked over here," Natalca told me, "There was absolutely nothing."

"The School is underground!" I said, relief still flooding my voice.

I lead the way further into the gardens, landing on a nearby tree, and then flipping down like onto the ground. Shanyn and Natalca did the bat-landing a few seconds later. After five minutes of frantic searching, I found the sewer cover my Voice had been talking about. Inside, there wasn't a bunch of muck and grime and the other stuff usually found in sewers. Instead, there was a clean, tiled hallway. I ran down it, my feet making next to no noise. At the end of the hallway, I found a freakin' _map_! It was like they wanted us to know where to go.

Looking at the map, I saw that the cages were very near us. We had to go down one hallway and then turn right, then through the second doorway. I sprinted in the direction the map indicated. In the room with the cages, I looked around. The room was empty, aside from the experiments. Getting a better view, I saw that there were hardly any of those anyways. I quickly scanned the room, then froze when I saw a certain cage.

There was a door hanging open, and the door had a big, red X on it. Taelyr was gone.

I couldn't control my legs anymore, my adrenaline was gone. I collapsed on the ground, sobs heaving my body. "Madysen," I heard Max say, "Get your butt up right now. We haven't checked all the rooms in the School yet. Help me look at the map on the door for suggestions."

I nodded and got up on still shaking legs. Looking at the map, there weren't any rooms that seemed likely aside from a small room down the hall labelled 'Operating Room'. That was our first pick. According to the computer, it was 10:52. We had less than ten minutes if the labmen stuck with their schedule. "If you're looking for Taelyr, I can help you," said a voice from the cage beside Taelyr's.

"I know you," Natalca said, "You're the boy from my vision. You were crying with Taelyr earlier today. Do you know where she went?"

"The whitecoats took her to the operating room a half an hour ago. They wanted to do some final tests before they neutralized her. Let me out, I can help you. She's probably still alive."

I swear my heart skipped a couple beats. Once I regained myself, I walked over to his cage and unlatched it before I had time to think it through and decide not to. He climbed out of his cage and faced us. "Thanks," he said, "My name's Wyll. **(When you finally read this Taylor, I debated naming him Oliver, just to bug you.) **I'm Taelyr's boyfriend."

"You're also going to help us bust her out of here. If you do a good job, we might take you with us," Max told him.

Wyll lead the way out of the cage room and down the hall to the operating room. I reached for the handle, and found it was locked. "Oh for the love of-"

"Look out!" Iggy's sneakered foot came by my head and literally knocked the door of its hinges. My reflexes caught it before it could hit the ground and make any more noise. Looking inside the room, I saw a labman holding a clipboard. Before he could even take a breath, I had crossed the room and punched him right between the eyes, instantly knocking him out and hopefully breaking his nose. Looking around, I took in an apple computer, a desk, and, in the center of the room, there was a big operating table. Strapped to the table by heavy metal links, was a girl my age, which looked almost exactly like my memories of Taelyr. She had a gasmask strapped over her face, and her eyes were closed. She was totally unconscious.

Acting on another first impulse, I ran to the bed and ripped the mask of her face. After that I pressed my fingers against the side of Taelyr's neck, searching for anything that resembled a pulse. After ten frantic seconds, I found a slight beating. It was unimaginably faint. If I hadn't had all my senses heightened by the labmen, I wouldn't have felt it at all. "She's alive!" I shouted, "Does anyone know where the keys are?"

Wyll reached up to a hook by the door and pulled down a set of keys. I never looked in the obvious spots. Wyll tossed the keys to me, and I unlocked the metal bonds on her arms, waist, neck, and legs. I pulled her off the operating table and carried her over my shoulder like a big, awkward baby. "Let's get out of here fast."

The others nodded and ran out the door. I followed them, slowed down only slightly by Taelyr's body weight. She was very light.

When we got to the sewer cover, I handed Taelyr's unconscious body to Shanyn, then climbed back out and plopped her over my shoulder again. We ran the whole way back to the Days Inn hotel.

When we got into the hotel, I told the lady at the desk, "If a bunch of really tan, pretty girls come in through that door, call our room, 347. We're expecting them to be here sometime tonight. I can't get a hold of them on their cell, so I don't know what time they're coming at exactly."

The lady nodded, staring at Taelyr, "She fell asleep on the way here. She can sleep through anything. And can we get one more adjoining room? That's if there's one available."

The receptionist nodded, believing me without a doubt about my lie about Taelyr, and handing me a key card for room 350.

When we got up to our room, I handed Taelyr to Wyll and Max unlocked the room for him to share with her. Wyll laid Taelyr down on the double bed. I started patting her face, trying to get her to wake up. She should have woke up by now. It had been over five minutes since she had been off the gasmask.

_She'll wake up in seventeen seconds. She's just collecting her thoughts about where she is and what happened. She's been able to hear you for over ten seconds._

"Taelyr wake up!" I said firmly, "I know you can hear me. It's Madysen. And Wyll's here too. Come on, wake up, please!"

Taelyr's eyelids fluttered, then opened and focused on me. "What the hell happened?" she asked.

"It's a long story," I told her, "I'll try to explain it before everyone comes here. Basically what happened was that you were going to be killed by the people at the School. One of the people who saved you had a vision of you dying and we came and saved your butt. We brought you here, to the hotel. You're in Oxford. That's pretty much it."

"I missed you Madysen," she said.

"I missed you too."

Max came into the room, followed by Fang, Shanyn, Nudge, Natalca, Angel, Iggy, and Gazzy. "Hi Taelyr!" Angel called out to her.

After that it was a very happy reunion. Taelyr was introduced to everyone, and hugged quite a lot by Wyll. Max finally ended the reunion by telling everyone, "We still have to leave tomorrow. Everyone should get to bed, okay?"

There was a chorus of okays, and then we all went to bed. For the first time in a long while, I was going to bed happily.

**Wow! That was my longest chapter ever! It totals 4625 words. That's amazing. I still have to decide what kind of DNA Taelyr will have. There will be a traitor in the flock soon! SanraitaFang, you know who it will be. One more thing, this story has had 11 visitors, and only **_**one**_** has reviewed it. Thank-you SanraitaFang! Everyone else, WHEN I RULE THE WORLD YOU WILL BE DEPROMOTED TO LOWLY PEASANTS WHO CLEAN THE PIG PENS AND WASH ME AND SANRAITAFANG'S FEET! CURSES!**

**As you can see, I am still working towards my life's goal of world domination. *Mental Smile*. One more thing. . . I thought that my new story name was a little bit dumb, so I suddenly had one of my life-changing brainwaves! For chapter seven, the story's name will again be changed. THis time when you go to look for it, search Chiroptera. I called it this because that is the scientific name of a bat, it means hand-wing. I know, I'm a genious, you don't have to review my story and tell me, not that anyone _would_, aside from SanraitaFang. Who's the person from Singapore who's reading my story? What's it like in Singapore? Fellow Canadians who are reading my story, review! Be patriotic towards a Canadian author! Please review! SanraitaFang, could you please tell them about my highly dangerous long-range, very fast shooting machine gun? That might scare them..........I WILL RULE THE WORLD!!**


	7. ATTACK!

**Hello dedicated readers! Thank you for finding my story. I finally found a good name for it. The first name had nothing to do with the story, the second was just plain old dumb, but the third, I think I finally got it right. Last chapter was really long, this chapter probably won't be quite so big. I do apologize. Chapter 7! SanraitaFang, if you don't update your freaking story, I won't lend you Hunted! I'll just keep renewing it at the library, and you will never get to read it!**

Max's POV

Of course, the first thing I woke up to in the morning was Gazzy saying to me, "Max! Wake up or I'll fart!"

As you can imagine, that got me out of bed _quite_ fast. Especially considering Gazzy still had the ability to release a little mushroom cloud of green gas from his rear end. "This hotel has a pool, and arcade, and a really big breakfast buffet, and we haven't done any of it!"

"What time is it?" I asked him.

"Almost 10:00 in the morning. You slept forever."

Staring at the clock beside my bed, I saw that he was right. I don't usually sleep for so long. Today was a rare exception. I had been tired after last night. Very tired. "You can go down to the pool for an hour or so. Anyone else can come with you."

"I already tried that. You need have someone thirteen with you to just go in the _hot tub_. To go in the actual pool with the waterslide, you have to have a fourteen year old person, so Fang said to come get you," He explained to me.

I was gonna kill Fang. He was probably already up and awake, but too lazy to take Gazzy swimming. Sigh, the duties of being flock leader always fall to me. Maybe because I'm flock leader. Hmmm, what a strange idea! "Give me a chance to shower and I'll be right there," I told an overjoyed Gazzy, who instantly went off to tell Nudge and Angel and who knows who else.

In the meantime, I went to the bathroom and got the morning hygiene issues under control. Once my hair was nice and clean, I climbed out of the shower and got dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. After that I went down to the pool where Gazzy was presumably waiting for me. I stopped at the table in the entryway and grabbed a chocolate chip cookie. They weren't as good as my mom's, but they were soooo good.

When I got to the pool, I saw Gazzy and pretty much the rest of the flock sliding down the waterslide. Aargh! They had just woken me up so they could trick me into coming swimming. Bums.

Of course then I didn't have a choice but to join them in the pool. I hopped in and immediately headed straight for the very, very, awesome waterslide. It wasn't super steep, but it went across the whole ceiling, which was pretty high, and slowly wound its way to the bottom, like a gihugemous snake.** (I made up the word 'gihugemous'. Can anyone tell?)** It took me about five minutes to get from top to bottom.

**(If my typing goes really wonky on the Fanfic site, please don't kill me. *cowers in terror* It was Microsoft word's fault, not mine! I went to a weird setting all of a sudden. Oh well, you'll have to deal with it. :** p** That's a face with its tongue stuck out. I'm so creative, not. I never would have figured it out on my own.)** Of course, after a half-an-hour, the young lady at the front desk had to come ruin our fun by telling us we couldn't go swimming without proper swimsuits. Note to self, pick those up soon. All we had to wear was shorts and t-shirts. So we grabbed some towels, dried off, went upstairs, packed our bags, signed out of the hotel, went outside, went to a secluded backyard, and flew into the air, instead of swimming. If I ever saw that lady again, well, let's just say I pity her. Just before we took off, I had a quick thought, "What kinds of DNA do you and Wyll have?" I asked Taelyr.

"Not a hundred percent sure," Taelyr responded, "Some kind of beetle, I think," she said, opening brilliant insect wings.

"I've got the same," Wyll added, "But I got the sweet end of the deal. I'm Spiderman."

Just like that, he spun a thick line of what honestly looked like white rope from the palm of his hand. "I guess one of the whitecoats was a fan," he said innocently, tearing the rope from his palm.

"So you guys know how to fly?" Fang asked.

"Yeah, the whitecoats tried to get us to carry bombs and stuff, but there's no _way_ I was gonna do that," Taelyr said.

"Same here," said Wyll.

"In that case, I guess we can leave now," I said.

So we took off into the air, heading to who knows where.

"Where are we gonna go now, Max?" Nudge asked me.

Ummm…

_The Himalayas._

_That's on the other side of the world!_

_Not if you're in Europe._

_It's still a freakishly long flight!_

_You can make it. There is a school in the Himalayas that you need to destroy._

Of course. "We're goin' to the Himalayas," I announced. Then I had an afterthought, "Total and Akila will think we're still in Oxford."

"We can pick a cell-phone up when we get to China," Fang told me.

"Good idea," I told him, "We'll stop at a Wal-mart or something and pick up some snacks before we leave."

"The rest of us ate at the hotel," Iggy told me, "You were still asleep, and Taelyr and Wyll were hungry."

I had almost forgotten about them. They had been pretty quiet, talking to each other and Madysen mostly. "Taelyr and Wyll, I already asked Madysen and Natalca how the whitecoats captured them. Is it okay if I ask you guys?" I asked them, "I still need to hear from Shanyn as well."

"Yeah sure, we don't mind," Wyll answered, "I was about seven and a half, and I was going to regular school on the school bus. The bus got hit by a semi or something, and most of it imploded. When the semi hit, it had been right where I was sitting, so I got thrown to the other side of the bus and went right through the window. I was pretty beat up. After that a guy came, I can't remember what he looked like, and he took me into a car. After that I fainted, and woke up in the School in the cage next to Taelyr's."

"Friendly mushrooms!" Taelyr shouted.

"Evil cucumbers!" Madysen responded.

"Killer tomatoes!" replied Taelyr.

"Burgundy bananas!" Madysen finished.

I stared at them. "Fang," I said, "I think we should get that cell phone fast. We need to make a call to the insane asylum."

Taelyr and Madysen were laughing their heads off, but Madysen somehow managed to convey, "We're not crazy, just slightly insane and happy!"

"If we were crazy," Taelyr added, "We'd be doing this!"

As if that were a signal of some sort, they both went perfectly straight and started spiralling towards the earth, shouting, "Mutant carrots, mutant carrots, mutant carrots!" the whole way down. Then they flew back up to meet us at our original altitude.

Taelyr and Madysen definitely needed to go to a mental facility. "If you're finally sane enough," I told Taelyr, "We would appreciate you telling us how the whitecoats kidnapped you."

"Madysen's probably already told you the majority of the story. We were tubing, and then the rope, which was tested for way more than we weighed, snapped. We got flung towards these really sharp rocks, and then two guys came. The first one picked up Madysen, and the second one picked up me. I saw Madysen go into a van, and then the man carrying me put me in a different one. I didn't see Madysen after that, and I thought she was dead," she said. Then, for reasons unknown, she turned around and stuck her tongue out at Madysen.

"What was that for?" asked Madysen.

"For not telling me you were alive!" said Taelyr, "You're such a meanie-bum!"

"I do apologize for not calling my friend, who had been turned into a beetle-person, and who was somewhere across the ocean while I was being held hostage in a top-secret facility where people turned me into a mutant bat-human hybrid, just to let her know that I was alive," said Madysen sincerely.

"Apology accepted," Taelyr answered.

These two were crazy. "Now we just have one more person to tell us what happened. Your turn Shanyn."

"When I was seven, my parents took me to Canada's Wonderland," she began, and I instantly realized it wasn't going to end well, "And I went on the Xtreme Skyflyer** (Yes that is an actual ride at Canada's Wonderland. I do my research! All the time! And yes, Shanyn goes on very crazy rides. Speaking of which, you have to come to Canada Day Fair Shanyn! There will be a Skymaster, and a Zipper ride! They are so much FUN! Look Xtreme Skyflyer up if you don't believe me that it's a real ride. It's probably better for you to look it up, since Shanyn's explanation isn't very good. It's not my fault it's no good, it's Shanyn's.)**, which is basically like freefalling. You're attached to this harness, which is attached to a rope, which is attached to a big swinging thingummy. It swings you down and then back up again. It's hard to explain. Anyways, for some reason, this girl named Syarrah had to come with us. This did not make me happy, because Syarrah can be _very_ annoying, and she tells _very_ unbelievable lies. For instance, when I said I was going to Canada's Wonderland, she said that she wished she could come, too. The next day, she told me that her parents had to go to a very conveniently scheduled funeral, and that she conveniently couldn't go. So she ended up inviting herself along with us.

"When we went on the Skyflyer, we were placed so that there was a big twenty-year-old guy in between us, since the harnesses can fit three people. After we started moving, we went really close to the ground, and we were going fast. When we were on the bottom of the swing, we were about six feet of the ground. At that moment, the rope decided to snap, meaning we fell the remaining six feet still going about as fast as a car. The harness broke when we hit the ground and Syarrah and I went one way, and the man went the other way. I'm not sure what happened to the man, and I didn't think about it much at the time, seeing as I pretty much couldn't feel any part of my body, and was almost unconscious.

"A man came and put us both in the back of a big, black van. The kind that secret agents use in spy movies. After a few minutes, I felt the van start to move. I, unlike _some_ people, managed to stay conscious for the entire trip. The van brought me and Syarrah to a helicopter landing pad, and she got loaded onto a plane. After a few minutes, a plane came for me. I was semi-conscious, so I don't remember exactly what happened during the flight, but I heard little pieces of the whitecoats conversation. They said words even _I _didn't understand like stem-cells, chiroptera, and some other ones.

"After the plane ride, I went into another van, and it brought me to the School. The whitecoats took me to an operating room, and I guess since I wasn't reacting to anything they did, they thought I was unconscious, so they operated on my back while I was still awake. It didn't hurt much more than it had already been hurting, though. After that, I got put in the same room as Madysen and Natalca, in the cage beside them. And then after a few more weeks, I developed my power to heal injuries. And then after a few more years, you guys came and saved us."

"Well," I told them, "You guys all have very different stories than ours. We've been part bird since we were born. You guys got changed when you were seven. And _all_ of you got changed when you were seven. Which is making me think that the whitecoats chose that age on purpose. Especially considering the fact that all of the 'accidents' could have been done on purpose. Wyll got hit by a semi, which could have been driven by a whitecoat. Taelyr and Madysen were tubing when the 5000 lb tested rope snapped, and the rope could have been pre-cut by a whitecoat. Shanyn also had a rope snap, same possible reason. Natalca's situation was probably the most likely that a whitecoat was behind it. Generally zookeepers don't leave the door to the _lion_ cage open on purpose."

"I definitely agree with that," said Wyll, "The semi didn't even try to stop, and it just kept driving after it hit us."

"I agree too," Iggy told me, "All of the accidents seem to be _way_ too convenient."

That started a round of agreeable sounds. I thought a little more on the different stories. Shanyn had said that Syarrah had been loaded onto a different helicopter…was that because Syarrah had died before they could make it to the landing pad? Or because she had been going somewhere else?

_That's almost exactly right, Max._

_What is?_

_What you were thinking right now._

_Which thought? The one that Syarrah was dead? Or the one that she had been shipped of to somewhere else?_

_The second one. Where are you going right now, Max? You've always been a fast thinker; I'm surprised you haven't figured it out already. _

Well now it didn't take me too long. "Shanyn," I called to her, "Syarrah's at the School in the Himalayas."

"What?" she asked me in shock, "How do you know?"

"The crazy little Voice in my head."

"I'm guessing we're going to rescue her?" Fang asked me.

"You're guessing right," I answered.

_Good choice, Max._

Shanyn POV

Sigh. I wasn't angry that we were going to pick up Syarrah. But she could be the world's most annoying person in history at times. One could only hope that five years of virtual isolation had changed her.

I watched the ground roll by. We were flying over Iran at the moment, and with the hot desert air rising in huge thermals, I only had to flap my wings about once every thirty seconds. "We are going to be arriving in the Himalayas in approximately three hours," Iggy told me in a mock flight attendant voice.

"Thank-you sir," I responded, "While you're still here, may I have a strawberry slushie, two bags of chips, and a hot dog please?"

"Nope!"

"You'll never make a good flight attendant," I told him, "Are we seriously arriving in three hours?"

"Again, nope. When the flock flew over Europe, it took us a fair bit of time to cross even France. And to fly across Texas, it takes about eight hours. So, it will not take three to get to the Himalayas. It will probably take closer to twelve or thirteen, which means that Max will be calling a break soon so that we can fuel up at a town. Actually, I'm surprised she hasn't already called one, considering the fact we've been flying for almost four hours," he said.

As though he was psychic, Max spoke up, "Time to stop for a break," she called out, "After this break, we'll fly 'till it gets dark, then find a spot to stay the night at."

We banked inward, and then descended. When we hit the ground, the sand was hot, even through my sneakers. If I had been barefoot, I probably would have gotten a burn.

"I can see a town or something over there," Max told us, "We can probably refuel there."

Our odd little flock/colony/bug swarm followed started off towards the distant cluster of huts. As we got nearer, my keen ears picked up an odd sound. It was a mix of odd sounding growls, panting, talking, and the grinding sound feet make when they walk across sand. I looked at Madysen and Natalca, only to discover that they were looking at me in the same way. I walked over to where they were standing. "Do you hear those growls?" Madysen asked me.

"Yeah, but I can't quite figure out what they are," I told her, "It's on the tip of my tongue…"

A look of dawning fear came over Natalca's face, "You guys, those growls sound like Shifters."

"Crap." I said. The situation didn't need a better word than that.

"Crap indeed," Madysen assured me, "Max! We can't go to that village! We can hear Shifters!"

Max looked confused for a second, and then remembered that our hearing was better than the flock's. "Got it. That village is bad. Up and away, you guys!"

"Max," Fang told her, "An up and away won't help. The Shifter's are already coming."

I turned and looked. There were indeed about ten sleek shapes running across the desert at an impossible speed. We had maybe thirty seconds until they reached us. "More crap," I muttered.

"More crap indeed," Madysen agreed.

"It's okay you guys," Max told us, "Get ready for a fight. There's only thirteen that I can see. That means one for each of us and then one more for whoever gets done first."

"Max," Madysen warned, "Shifters are freakishly strong, don't underestimate them."

"They're way stronger than Omega was," Angel told her, obviously reading our memories of them.

By now, the Shifters, which were fully shifted into their predator forms, had about five seconds until they reached us, and I was braced for the fight of my life. The first one struck at Max, and the rest came at us. I found myself punching a pure white creature in the face. She didn't even flinch. I gave a quick roundhouse kick to her gut, but she jumped in the air, dragon wings flapping, and landed on the other side of me. She used her huge paws to pin me to the ground and gave me a large scratch across my left arm. I gasped at the sudden flash of pain, then got myself together and healed it. The Shifter was much heavier than me, but I managed to roll her off of me and jump on her stomach. The huge cat-like creature rolled over and started coughing into the sand. While she was distracted, I gave a lighting fast punch at the thick muscles on the side of her throat, right under her jaw-line. The instant I hit, she gave a loud roar of pain, and then fainted, completely knocked out. "You guys!" I called, "Hit the Shifters on the side of the neck, under the jaw-line! It knocks them out!"

The group tried my technique, and after less than thirty seconds, the entire herd of Shifters was lying around us, unconscious. "Well," said Max, "We know their weak spot. Shanyn, any chance you could help us with our battle wounds?"

"Sorry!" I said, "I'll get them."

I quickly healed everyone's scratches. When I came to Natalca, I saw that she was sporting a broken leg, probably stepped on by 200 lb Shifter. "This'll hurt, Natalca," I told her, "I have to set the bone before I heal it, otherwise you could end up crippled."

Natalca just nodded, teeth gritted against the pain in her leg, and with good reason. I quickly took her leg in my hands and lined the bones up, ignoring her sharp intake of breath. As soon as I felt the bones were in their proper spots, I used my magical power to fuse them together, along with the thin layer of muscle they had sliced through.

"Okay," Max called out, "We obviously aren't going to camp at that village, so we'll have to fly for a few more hours before we can take a rest. Does everyone think they can go 'till sunset?"

We all mumbled agreement, and did an up and away.

**Ha ha! I finally made the Shifters attack! So happy! The next chapter might not be up for a while, on account of me going camping next week and also on account of me starting a new Fanfic. If anyone's read the house of night series, you can find my first chapter there in a few weeks. In the meantime, does anyone have any ideas that might aid my plan of world domination? I WILL RULE THE WORLD SO DON'T TRY TO TELL ME OTHERWISE!!!!!!!!!! MWAH HAH HAH!!!!!!!!!!**


	8. Powers

**The next chapter is now started. Please don't kill me for the event at the beginning. It's just way too hard to write with eleven people. After about four more chapters there will be even more! SanraitaFang, if you take your long-range bazooka, I'll come after you with my machine-gun. Everyone else, these aren't actual weapons, so don't call the cops on us. I just realized I have made several mistakes in my story so far. So: **

**1. in chapter 4, paragraph #11, I said that I could change an objects structure at will, and that Natalca could move stuff with her mind. Forget I said that.**

**2. In Chapter 5, when Natalca is telling how she got kidnapped by the whitecoats, she said that ****"The labman had a tranquilizer gun with him, and he shot the polar bear, and took me to the School." Ignore that, because the whitecoat shot the **_**lion**_** not the polar bear. I'm not sure what was going through my head.**

**3. In chapter unknown, I said that Shanyn had been kidnapped by whitecoats after she was in a car crash. Forget I said that, because she was in the amusement park ride crash with Syarrah.**

**4. The weight of the Shifters has changed around a bit. The weight will be 900 lbs. This isn't that much, considering a polar bear can weigh up to 1,500 lbs. The other reason is because my friend, who thinks Shifters are the awesomest things on the planet, wanted them to weigh a lot, and to be bigger than a grizzly bear. As it is, a Shifter would be quite huge. Its shoulder would come up to the middle of Max's shoulder blade. There heads are about the same height as their shoulders.**

**4. If anyone finds any other mistakes, please tell. I won't be correcting spelling/grammar mistakes. You can figure out what I mean there on your own.**

Max POV **(I always seem to start with her point of view)**

After it had gotten dark yesterday we stopped to rest for the night. We had made it to northern India, and were going to continue on to the Himalayas in the morning. This morning, I had to call a very important flock meeting. "Everyone come here," I called out, "Flock meeting."

Almost everyone was within ten yards, so it didn't take long for them to get here. "The flock is getting pretty big you guys," I began, "We're already up to eleven people, and there will only be more when we rescue Syarrah. We're gonna have to split up."

"But Max!" Nudge told me, "The last time we split up, we got kidnapped and Fang and Iggy and Gazzy had to save us. What if we split up again and we're farther apart? What will happen then?"

I already hated to do this, did she have to make me feel worse? "I don't know Nudge," I told her, "But this group is way too big. We're going to start attracting attention after we rescue Syarrah. And what if Syarrah has other people with her as well? We meant to just save Taelyr, but she and Wyll came as a package deal. What if Syarrah has a friend like Taelyr did? Then we'll have _thirteen_ people! You guys honestly think that's not too much?"

There were mutterings of agreement. "I'm thinking that we should make the groups like this," I said, preparing to launch my plan, "Me, Fang, Nudge, Gazzy, Angel, and Iggy will make up one group. Shanyn, Madysen, Natalca, Taelyr, and Wyll will make up the other. Are those groups all right with everyone?"

I expected the groups to be fine. Everyone was grouped with the people they got along best with. "I'd like to make one change," Iggy told me, "I think I'm gonna go in Shanyn's group."

I couldn't help it. I stared. Just for a second though. Or maybe two. "Okay," I agreed, "That's fine. We should probably go soon."

"If we're split up into different groups, who's going to go where?" asked Wyll.

"I think that Group Number Two will go to the Himalayas to rescue Syarrah, since she'll probably recognize Shanyn."

"Joy," Shanyn muttered quietly.

"Is she that bad?" Natalca asked her.

Shanyn answered without a second of hesitation, "Yes, she's that bad. If the whitecoats turned her into some prehistoric, scaly creature, it would suit her personality perfectly."

"She's pretty bad," Madysen agreed.

"Why have you guys stopped calling them labmen?" Iggy asked them.

"Habit, I guess," Shanyn told him, "You guys call them whitecoats all the time, so I guess we've adopted the word."

"Weird," I told them, "We should probably leave now."

"Where are you going to go?" Taelyr asked me.

"We're gonna go destroy some Schools in South America," I said, picking a random continent out of my head.

"Okay," Taelyr agreed.

We all said our goodbyes, promising that we would each pick up cell phones next time we were in a city. I also handed Madysen the MaxRide card. "You'll need it more than us," I told her, "You guys can keep destroying Schools in the Eastern hemisphere. I've already taken out a couple hundred dollars cash, so you have free rule over this."

She nodded, and tucked the MaxRide card in her deepest pocket. "I can guess that I'll have it lost by the day after tomorrow," she told me.

"Give it here," Shanyn sighed, accepting the card and putting it in her own pocket, "The last thing we need is to have you put this down and forget to pick it back up."

"I can't help it!" Madysen told Shanyn, "My mind is easily amusedand easily distracted!"

"That's because there isn't much in there to amuse or distract," Shanyn teased.

Madysen whacked Shanyn on the head, then quickly dodged a roundhouse kick from Shanyn. "Will you guys save your fighting for the Shifters?" Wyll asked them.

They stopped fighting with each other at the thought of Shifters. "So, I guess we'll see you guys later," I said, "Pick up the cell-phones as soon as you can, and we'll-AAAGH!!"

A deep, stinging, burning, words-can-hardly-describe pain ran through my entire body. And I mean _entire_. My _toenails_ hurt! You don't even have nerve endings in your toenails as far as I know. Out of the corner of my blotchy vision, I saw everyone drop to the ground. I must have done the same, because they suddenly disappeared and were replaced by the grassy, sandy ground. I couldn't feel the ground hit my body over the pain. My hands and feet felt like they were being run over by a semi-truck. My head hurt worse than the headaches the Voice had given me. My throat felt like I had tried to swallow one of those medieval flail thingies. My stomach felt like it was trying to digest itself. My bones felt like they were being ground into a fine powder. Needless to say, it hurt. A lot. Just as suddenly as the pain came, it left. "What the _hell_ was that?" I shouted once I could think again.

"I don't know," Natalca said, "But could you guys _please_ shut up for a minute so I can think."

"No one's talking, Natalca," Shanyn told her.

"Shanyn, you need either your hearing or your brain checked," Natalca assured her, "_Everyone's_ talking."

"No, Natalca," Iggy told her, "Nobody's saying a word except for us arguing."

An idea came to me. "What is everyone saying, Natalca?" I asked her.

"Honestly, can you guys not hear yourselves? Everybody's muttering to themselves trying to figure out what happened. Madysen and Shanyn keep on saying I'm crazy, which I already _know_ is not true. And Angel's telling me I can read minds."

"Angel's right, you idiot," Shanyn informed Natalca, "None of us have said those things out loud. We thought them in our head!"

A very frightening smile crossed Natalca's face. "Oh this will be fun," she said.

"Great, now I've got even less privacy than I did before. CURSES!!!" Madysen said loudly.

I gave her a _????_ look at her interesting choice of word. "She says it all the time," Shanyn explained to me, "Along with 'Curses on you pants' and 'Supreme curses of the Universe'. Her mind is mystery."

"But not anymore!" Natalca teased.

"You are going to get _so_ annoying," Madysen informed her.

"That's what everyone is thinking," Natalca told us, "I would know."

"Hey," Shanyn said as a look of inspiration crossed her face, "I wonder if there's some sort of weird connection between Natalca and Angel's brains, since they can both read minds…"

"Not as far as we can tell," Angel told her, "I hear Natalca's mind the same way I hear everyone else's."

"Darn," I said, "But good idea Shanyn."

"We still don't know what that was a few minutes ago," Fang said.

"Yeah, we should probably figure that out," I agreed, "Anybody have any ideas?"

"Madysen does," Natalca informed me, "And it's a pretty good idea, too."

Madysen sighed. "I don't think it's a coincidence that we all feel like we're getting run over by a monster truck, and then right after, Natalca adopts the ability to read minds. What if we all swapped powers or something?"

"That is a good idea. Only one way to find out. Let's pick a random person," I said, closing my eyes and turning around in circles with my finger pointed out. When I opened my eyes, my finger was pointed at Gazzy, who, on afterthought, had probably ran in front of my finger as I turned in circles, "Gazzy mimics voices, so I'll say something, and then everyone else will try to copy it. Una cosa muy extraña ocurrió justo."**(Which means: A very strange thing just occurred.)**

"Max, you just spoke Spanish," Madysen informed me.

Whadya know? I guess I did. "I got Madysen's power," I said, just to establish the fact, "But let's see who can mimic what I just said!"

The flock gave me hateful looks. "Un coza mee etranax occuro josta?" Nudge stuttered out, with a very not-Spanish accent

"Nope," Madysen said, "Next."

"Una cause mi extrona occurio josto," Shanyn attempted, again with a very American accent.

I shook my head at her. "Una cosa me extrania ocurro justa." Iggy said with an unspanish accent, but in my voice.

"Congrats Ig," I told him, "You can now mimic voices. Use your talent wisely. Which means as soon as you can, get back at Gazzy for all those years he made us suffer."

"Oh definitely, revenge is sweet. Anyways, shall we have a flying race to see who got Max's power?" Madysen asked.

"Sure," I said, "Let's all go to that ravine over there and back here."

We all flew into the air, and as soon as I shouted 'go', everyone took off, flying as fast as we could to the distant ravine. After a few seconds, my turbo-drive kicked in, and I easily passed everyone. I did a quick shoulder check, and saw that Madysen was less than twenty feet behind me, straining her muscles to keep up. She had obviously gotten my speediness. I reached the ravine and turned around. Doing another shoulder check, I saw Madysen do a very well manoeuvred flip in the air and turn around, gaining a few feet on me. Unfortunately, bird wings are meant for speed, while bat wings are meant for fancy tricks and whatnot.

Just before I passed everyone else on the way back, I saw Natalca drop suddenly towards the ground. I quickly altered my course so that I streamlined downwards to her. We were flying at our normal altitude, so I caught her before she could drop too far. I took one look at her face and instantly recognized the blank expression. She was having a vision. Joy. Her visions were always so happy.

"Is she having a vision?" Madysen asked from somewhere a few feet above me.

"Yup." I answered her as I drifted down towards the ground.

Everyone else came to land by me and Madysen. "Vision," Madysen informed them.

Natalca's eyes fluttered open. She still looked slightly out of it, but not near as messed up as she had been the first time she'd had a vision of something. "That's still weird," she said, shaking her head.

"What'd you see?" Nudge asked.

"Me, Shanyn, Iggy, some weird girl, and two other guys attacking a Shifter. Only the Shifter was weird-looking. She had wavy hair and her skin wasn't really all that tan."

"What about her eyes?" Madysen questioned.

"Ice blue," Natalca informed us.

"What did the three strangers look like?" Shanyn asked.

"The girl was tan, she had wavy hair, _very_ thick. Her hair and eyes were brown. The two guys looked related. They both had blondie-brown hair, and I didn't see their eye colour."

"Was I in the vision? Madysen asked.

"Yeah, you were telling us to _stop_ attacking the Shifter," Natalca accused her.

"What?" Madysen said in shock, "That's crazy! I'm always one of the first ones to attack a Shifter. There is no way I would tell anyone to stop attacking a Shifter. They're evil!"

"I'm not saying you would do that," Natalca said, "I'm just saying that's what I _saw_."

"It doesn't matter. Let's keep figuring out who has what powers. Iggy mimics voices, Madysen got super speed, and Natalca reads minds, which means she can probably also control minds. We _don't_ need you to try, Natalca," I said, seeing the diabolical look cross her face.

Natalca POV

Oh, whose mind should I control? I don't suppose Shanyn would mind _too_ much. Now, how do I do this? Angel had described it as just asking someone with your mind.

_Hey Shanyn. Can you please do random dance moves while singing 'On top of Spaghetti'?_

_No._

_What? You can't say no to mind control! That's not fair!_

_Well, you asked me a question, and I answered it. I didn't realize there was _any_ mind control involved in this._

_Well in that case…I order you to do random dance moves while singing 'On top of Spaghetti'!_

Very much to my amusement, Shanyn actually started doing the moves to Madysen's Happy Dance, while singing 'On top of Spaghetti' at the top of her lungs.** (I love to embarrass people. Anyone who doesn't know the moves to Madysen's Happy Dance, it has a bunch of really weird dance moves which are danced to the tune of 'Get Ready for This' by 2 Unlimited. I'm sure you all know the song. Look it up on Youtube if you think you don't. Shanyn probably wouldn't dance my happy dance unless she was held at gunpoint or was in the middle of having her mind controlled. Like right now for instance. The dance is just too embarrassing for anyone with a higher sense of pride than me.)** Needless to say, the entire flock started laughing. It was funny. After she was done Madysen's short Happy Dance, I started projecting dance moves into her head. Some of them she looked very odd doing. Ballet would be one of those. As well as grabbing Iggy and doing the tango with him. Eventually she finished singing her song, and I ran out of dance moves to make her do. She snapped out of her trance with a very confused look on her face. "Why is everyone staring at me," she asked, looking around at the smiling faces that surrounded her.

"I controlled your mind Shanyn," I explained to her.

"Oh, God. What did you make me do?" She said, a look of greatest dismay on her face. Hmmm, I wonder why that could be?

"Dance and sing 'On top of Spaghetti'."

"I _really_ hate you."

"I hate you too," I told her.

"I _will_ get you back," she vowed.

"I look forward to it," I replied, smiling at her angelically.

"I've figured out a way to see who got Nudge's power," Max said, interrupting our little chat, "Well, her magnetism one. I guess we'll figure out who has her sixth sense thing at another time. That one I don't know how to do."

"How will we figure out my magnetism one?" asked Nudge.

"I'll throw a quarter up in the air," Max explained, "And everyone will try to catch it. Without using their hands."

"Okay," Madysen said, "Throw it up."

After digging around in her pocket for a spare quarter, she threw the coin into the air. Before it had even started to fall, it zoomed down. Straight into the waiting hand of Nudge. "Oops," she said, seeing the exasperated look on Max's face, "Was I not supposed to catch it?"

"No."

"I won't this time," Nudge promised, an innocent smile on her face.

Max threw the coin into the air again, and this time, a second after it started to fall, it flew into Shanyn's hand. Shanyn looked at the coin. She tossed it back into the air and made it zoom towards my ear. "Ow!" I said as it hit my ear, "What was that for?"

"For making me do random dance moves while singing 'On top of Spaghetti'," she answered, "And there will be more revenge coming."

I still didn't regret it.

"Enough," Max said, "Or do you want me to host a funeral for all the sanity around here?"

"Sanity? Funeral? A funeral for sanity?" Shanyn asked, "Please do."

Madysen nodded frantically. "Die sanity!" she shouted.

"How will we kill sanity?" Taelyr asked.

"Let's see," Shanyn said, a malicious smile on her face, "Who's the sanest person here?"

"Fang," Madysen answered immediately, "Due to the fact that he never talks, the only things he bothers to say make perfect sense."

"Well then," Shanyn responded, "Fang, who is sanity personified, shall now have a formal death ceremony!"

In the ultimate show of formalness, she flew tackle-style at Fang, who instantly dodged in a cool side-matrix-type thingy. While Fang was distracted by Shanyn, I flew at him from behind, succeeding in tackling him to the ground. As he hit the ground, he went totally limp. I paused in confusion. I hadn't tackled him any harder than the Shifters. I hadn't even thrown all my weight on him. Maybe 70 lbs of weight? Not even. The Shifters had thrown their full 900+ on us.

While I was having my little _huh?_ moment, Fang did a semi-Chinese-get-up, throwing me off of him and onto the ground. Mr. Sanity had tricked me into thinking he was injured so that he could escape. "That was so not cool, Fang," I told him, as he got up the rest of the way.

He shrugged and did an up-and-away, escaping from where me, Shanyn, Wyll, Taelyr, and Madysen were circled around him. HE tried to fly towards the ravine we had raced by earlier. Shanyn gave an evil laugh, "He forgot our secret weapon," she said.

"Who's the secret weapon?" asked Madysen.

"You idiot," Shanyn said in exasperation, "You're the secret weapon! You will sneak over to the ravine using your super speed, and then you shall wait in the bushes for him to come. He will not notice you because we will be chasing him from behind. He will try to hide in the bushes, where you will attack him. We will arrive seconds later, and host the formal death ceremony for Sir Sanity."

"Good plan!" Madysen congratulated Shanyn. She then flew off, keeping as low to the ground as possible. After maybe two seconds, her turbo-drive kicked in. Max gave us a look, but otherwise didn't comment on us practicing our fighting skills on her boyfriend. Since she didn't comment, we took it as permission to continue. Not that we wouldn't have continued anyways. Shanyn, me, Taelyr, Wyll, and Iggy took off after Fang, trying to distract him from Madysen with a bit of evil mob-like violence and taunting shouts. Taelyr started the taunting shouts.

"You can't run from us Mr. Sanity," Taelyr shouted.

"Yes I can," he shouted back, "As a matter of fact, I am!"

"Well you can't hide," Shanyn shouted at him.

In response, he swooped down in a dive towards the ravine. Mwah hah hah.

Madysen POV

As I waited for Fang to come to his death ceremony, I amused myself by playing with a freakishly large leaf. No, I am not crazy. This leaf was at least a couple feet long. It was taller than _me_! And I'm pretty tall. I had fun with this leaf. Eventually I had to stop, due to the fact that I tried to use it as a parachute and it ripped. Oops.

A few seconds after I broke my leaf (sob), I heard the sound of Fang's wings flapping. Since I have really great hearing, do to the fact I have bat DNA and all that, I knew I still had to wait a few more seconds. As in thirty or so. I quickly ran to a good hiding place near where he would hopefully land and dropped my backpack there. A few seconds after I crouched down into my hiding spot, Fang appeared in the sky above me, and then swooped down and landed on the ground right in front of me, back facing me. Oh, this attack could not happen better. I football-tackled him from behind, and could tell by his reaction (falling instantly to the ground) that he had not anticipated me tackling him. I kept him pinned to the ground until everyone else came. The whole time he had been squirming and trying to buck me off of him. "We're here!" Shanyn called to me.

"You're kidding!" I exclaimed in mock surprise, "I thought you were in the middle of you're voyage to Jupiter!"

"We made it back in time for the death ceremony," Taelyr explained, "We didn't want to miss it."

"Help Madysen hold Fang down," Wyll instructed, "Then we can tickle him to death. He is very ticklish."

"You said you wouldn't tell!" Fang accused Wyll.

Wyll shrugged, "I'm not very trustworthy."

As everyone approached Fang, he started bucking and squirming even harder. As he writhed on the ground, his head hit me in the face. It hurt, but not badly. It just made my nose feel funny for a second. As he continued squirming, I saw a red droplet fall onto the back of his head. I stuck two fingers to my nose, and then pulled them away to find that they had blood on them. Wonderful. A nosebleed. "Tibe-out," I said, climbing off of Fang with my nose pinched between two fingers.

"Madysen?" Taelyr asked, "You okay?"

"Nose-beed," I said, my plugged nose making my speech sound weird.

"Sorry," Fang apologized.

"Dote be," I told him, "I get dem all de tibe."

I walked over to where I had left my bag. I was pretty sure I had put some Kleenex in the outside pocket. Sure enough, there was the little travel box of Kleenex. I took out two or three sheets and pressed them against my nose. Turning around, I saw that everyone was still staring at me. "I'b fine," I told them.

"Can I borrow a Kleenex?" Fang asked.

"Sure," I said, somewhat puzzled by the strange request. Nevertheless, I handed him the Kleenex.

Fang took the Kleenex and wiped up the drops of blood on the back of his head. "Sorry aboud dat," I told him, feeling a tad guilty.

Fang shook his head at me. "I make you _bleed_," he said, "And the only thing you're worried about is the fact that you bled _on_ me?"

"I ged nose-beeds all the tibe," I told him again, "Dey're no big deal."

I pulled the Kleenex away from my nose to see if it had stopped bleeding yet. Nope. Not that I was expecting it to. I grabbed another couple of Kleenexes and chucked the old ones in the bush. No, I did not litter. Blood is nutrient-rich and Kleenex is biodegradable. The trees will love me. "You know," Shanyn reminded me, "There _is_ a quicker way to fix it."

Before I could put the new Kleenexes to my dripping nose, Shanyn healed it and the dripping stopped. "Oh yeah," I said, amazed at my forgetfulness, "I forgot about that. Oops."

"Idiot," Shanyn muttered.

I heard a flap of wings from above us. "Here comes everyone else," I said.

Sure enough, in a few more seconds Max, Nudge, Angel, and Gazzy appeared over the edge of the ravine and flew down to land beside us. "What happened to you?" Max asked as soon as she saw me.

"What? Oh, I had a nosebleed," I said. I had forgotten about the dried up blood around my nose. Grabbing another Kleenex, I wiped away the blood.

"My fault," Fang said.

"If you don't quit saying that," I warned him, "Then you might be the one with the nosebleed."

Fang just shook his head at me. "What happened?" Nudge asked, "Why does Fang think it's his fault."

"I tackled him. Everyone threatened to tickle him, he squirmed, his head hit my nose, I got a nosebleed, Shanyn stopped it, end of story. Oh, I also bled in his hair. He now has red streaks." I teased.

"No big deal," Shanyn added, "She gets nosebleeds way too easily."

"Okay then. Well, assuming the death ceremony's cancelled, Nudge figured out a way to test everyone for her other power," Max said, pulling a small scrap of fabric from her pocket, "This is a sock. No one knows whose it is, since it is a plain white sock with no recognizable distinguishing features. I don't even know whose it is. Only Nudge does. I will pass around the sock, and people will try to figure out whose it is."

Max tossed the sock to Fang, who caught it one handed. He shrugged and tossed it to Angel. It fell a meter or so short of her and she walked over to pick it up. "Ummm, Gazzy?" she guessed.

"Nope," Nudge smiled, like knowing who the sock belonged to was the greatest thing in the world.

Angel handed the sock to me, since I was right beside her. No sudden realization of who the sock belonged to came to me. "Not a clue," I said, handing the sock to Taelyr.

"This is my sock! It has the little hole by the pinkie toe," she said, sticking her finger through the hole.

Max sighed. "I have a back-up sock," she said, tossing the back-up to Taelyr.

"I don't know who's this one is," Taelyr said, examining the sock like it might have some microscopic clue. When she couldn't find any, she tossed it to Shanyn.

"This one's Taelyr's too," Shanyn said, "You didn't recognize your own sock. Nice."

Taelyr looked at Max with a 'Huh?' expression on her face. "Did you raid my sock pocket in my bag or something?" she asked.

"Maybe, maybe not. Only me, Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel will know."

"You got it right," Nudge said, "Do you think you have my power, or was it just a totally random guess?"

"No, I just sorta _knew_ who the sock belonged to," Shanyn said.

"Awesome! Now you have both of my powers! I wonder if I got yours," she said to herself.

"We'll figure that out when the time comes," Max said, "Unless someone wants to do a dive-bomb towards the ground and forget to put their wings out. Which I don't think anyone wants to do. Just one of those crazy little thoughts of mine."

"Just a sec," Shanyn said, "Random idea. Does anyone have a pen and paper?"

"I have a doodle-book in my bag" I said, walking over to my backpack. I pulled out the sketchpad and handed it to Shanyn.

Shanyn took my sketchpad and the pen once I got it out. **(I've only done two author's notes this whole chapter! Three if you count this one. I better get caught up on the A/N's)** She started drawing something on the pad. Once she finished, she showed it to us:

_Odd little group of Flock_

_random mutant animals_

_Shanyn---------------------------Nudge_

_Madysen------------------------Max_

_Iggy-----------------------------Gazzy_

_Taelyr---------------------------?_

_?---------------------------------Fang_

_Natalca-------------------------Angel_

_Wyll----------------------------?_

"Writing Gibberish," I said, shaking my head in dismay, "One of the first signs of craziness."

"It's only Gibberish because you aren't smart enough to figure it out. Allow me to explain," she said pointing, "I have Nudge's power, and she might have gotten mine. You got Max's power, and she got yours. Iggy and Gazzy swapped, which sort of sucks for Gazzy, since all Iggy can do is see white back when he was blind, and feel colours. Could come in handy if you're in a jail cell, blindfolded, and have to find which of the colour coded keys opens the cell. Anyways, Taelyr hasn't gotten anyone's power yet, and neither has Fang, so they probably switched. Natalca got Angel's mind powers, and we have to wait to see if Angel gets visions. Wyll either doesn't get powers because there aren't enough people, or he might get some of Angel's spare powers, seeing as she has so many."

"Shanyn," Natalca said slowly, as if forcing her to understand some complex equation, "This is why we call you a super computer."

"I still have the quarter," Shanyn warned, "And I bet I can throw it a lot harder."

"Less fight, more figuring out powers," said Max firmly, "Wyll, try to change how you look."

"What?"

"Make your hair go curly."

Wyll gave her a doubtful look, but made his straight, silky hair go curlier than Nudge's. This was a highly odd look on his dark blonde hair. "That feels creepy," he said, patting his curls.

So of course he had to experiment with his new power. He made his hair get black streaks, grow until it reached his shoulders, and then disappear altogether. After that, he made his height differ by a few inches at a time. He couldn't get changes over about 6" to work though. After he was done playing with his height, he made his eyes change colour. He made them go moss-green, blue, brown, and then started to try Shifter eyes. He could only do yellow eyes, but it was still creepy. "How come he's so much better than me?" Angel said, looking disappointed.

"Maybe you just have too many powers to control. This is the only one I have so far," Wyll suggested.

"Well, that means my theory about Wyll getting Angel's other power is true. Let's see if Taelyr got Fang's power. Stand completely still, Taelyr," Shanyn instructed.

Taelyr stood still, and after ten seconds or so, disappeared. "Cool," said Taelyr's disembodied voice, "You can't see me!"

"Stick your tongue out," I challenged.

So of course Taelyr sticks her tongue out and appears again. "You tricked me," Taelyr accused me.

"What power do I get from Taelyr?" asked Fang.

"Teleporting," Taelyr said, "But it's not very good. Any distance outside of about three meters is impossible. And I have to be able to see where I'm going, and it's very tiring. But I can still do it."

"And how come no one knows you do this?" asked Iggy.

"I just figured out I got it a day or two after you guys rescued me from the School. I didn't get around to telling anyone yet," Taelyr explained.

"Can I see you teleport?" Gazzy asked.

"I guess so. Madysen, you stand over there," she said, pointing to a spot about two and a half meters away.

"Okay, um, why?" I asked, slightly confused.

"It's really tiring, and I'm usually off balance when I land, so I generally fall down from a combination of exhaustion and lack of balance."

I walked over to the spot she had indicated. Taelyr stared at the ground right in front of me, with a look of intense concentration on her face. After a few seconds, she disappeared from where she was standing and almost instantly landed in front of me, swaying as she tried to regain her balance. I caught her by the arm and steadied her. "Good job," I told her, "You just need to practice."

"Thanks," she said, sounding more than slightly out of breath.

"Well," said Max, "Now that we know who has what powers, I guess we should leave."

"Yeah, we'll buy a cell phone soon so that we can stay in touch," Shanyn agreed.

"How will we know each other's numbers?" Fang said.

"We'll all phone my mom's house and leave our numbers, then she'll relay the other groups number back to us," Max explained, "Her number is 390-555-3057."

"Okay. Bye."

**And since this chapter is long enough already, and I don't feel like writing a big long 'goodbye' scene, the end! Now, this chapter has 5550 words total. I could have cut it in half and turned it into two chapters. But I didn't. Be happy about that. Show your appreciation using the little button down by the bottom of the screen that says "Review This Chapter". I don't care if you say it was the crappiest story you've ever seen, just REVIEW IT!**


	9. Aaron

**First, this entire chapter is dedicated to yuui-kun, for giving me my first review from someone I don't actually know. Ever, with any story. You have **_**no**_** idea how ecstatic I was. This is a major breakthrough. :)**

**Yuui-kun, if you're talking about America as in the states, you can have it. I have no need for that section of land. But if you mean America as in North and South America, not a chance. I will share though. To everyone else, Yuui-kan volunteered to help me with world domination, so I will be sharing the world with Yuui-kan, along with Sanraita and NOtalka who I know will help me anyways. **

**Severely sorry about the amount of time it took me to do this chapter. **

**Here's chapter number 9. I think it's nine…hmmm. Yup, it's nine.**

Wyll POV

It felt good to be flying again. The mountainous air of the Himalayas was slightly chilly, but refreshing. We were searching the mountains for anything that might be a School. No luck so far of course. **(Caps lock is working again!) **There had been a few false alarms. Unfortunately they all turned out to be rocks or irregularly shaped patches of snow. It could take us days to find the School. Actually, I should say days more. We had already been here for three. "Any luck?" I called out, hoping that the majority of the group would hear me. We were spread out a little bit far.

"No," came the faint calls.

I searched futilely for a few more hours. Let me tell you, mountain air is cold! Thankfully we had bought fancy gloves and winter clothes, along with the much needed cell-phone.

Seeing a likely looking rock, I dove down, beetle wings buzzing furiously. The cold was definitely not good for them. It made them brittle and cold. They were fairly thick, since they were in relation to my body the same size as they would be in relation to a bug's body, but the cold still didn't agree with them. Not wanting another false alarm, I searched the rock's edges for hinges, metal, doorframes, or anything else that didn't belong on a mountain. On the top of the stone, my gloved fingers skidded across some lumpy things. Moving my glove away, I saw some hinges, cleverly disguised as rock. "I found something," I shouted at the top of my lungs.

_Where are you?_ Natalka asked in my mind.

I pulled out my little pocket map of the Himalayas. Shanyn had decided we would all need one. Examining it, I figured out I was on the Kangchenjunga mountain. I pinpointed my location a bit closer, than replied to Natalca's mind question.

_North face of Mount Kangchenjunga, about a hundred meters east of second camp._

_I'll send everyone over._

After a few minutes, everyone else made it over. "Did you find it?" Madysen asked hopefully.

"I'm pretty sure I did. Either that or there's a secret door carved into the mountain that's supposed to be there."

Iggy was already feeling around the edge of the doorway for the invisible hinges. "That is definitely a door," he announced, "Congrats Wyll."

"Thank-you," I said, doing a fancy bow.

"Good job," Taelyr congratulated me, giving me a hug, "Would you like to do the honours?"

In response, I spun a rope of spider web from my palm and stuck the edges onto the sides of the door. I passed the rest of the length of rope to Madysen, Shanyn, Iggy, and Taelyr, and we all pulled. The perks of having superhuman strength. After about thirty seconds of pulling, the frozen door finally cracked open. Inside, there was sleek laboratory hallways, tiled in the classic white. With white walls. And white lights. I wonder if they have a favourite colour?

Ignoring my combined feeling of déjà vu and nausea, I led the way into the School. Unlike the School in Oxford, this one didn't have handy maps at regular intervals, so we were left to find our way about on our own. "Which way?" I asked at the first interval.

"Left," Madysen suggested, "I like left."

"You have a favourite _direction_?" Natalca asked her.

"Don't you?"

"I do," Taelyr said, "Up."

"Clever," Madison appraised, "And fitting, considering you can fly and all that."

"You two are bad for each other," I told them, "Are we going left?"

"I think so."

"Wait!" Shannon said, "Listen."

I strained my ears. I didn't hear anything. "I hear it," Madysen said, "Footsteps."

I still didn't hear anything, but Madysen, Shanyn and Natalca had bat hearing. "Which way are they coming from?" I asked.

"Left."

"So we will turn-" I began.

"Up!" Taelyr said.

"Taelyr, that doesn't work," I reminded her sarcastically, and a tiny bit annoyedly, as I started to turn right. We seriously didn't have time for her randomness at the moment.

"Yeah, it does, she said, pointing up.

I looked up. There was indeed an air vent above us. "Well don't I feel like an idiot."

I gave Taelyr a boost up to the vent. She unfastened the screws quickly, using a dime she pulled out of her pocket. After she got the screws out, she silently passed the cover down to Iggy, who grabbed it and laid it gently on the floor. I pushed Taelyr's feet through the vent, and then lifted Iggy up through it as well. Followed by Shanyn, Madysen, and Natalca. As soon as everyone was in, Taelyr and Shanyn grabbed me by my wrists and pulled me up. I hooked my feet around the vent cover and pulled it up with me, sliding it through the square entrance. I figured a vent without its cover was less noticeable than a vent cover lying on the ground. Right underneath the vent that is missing a cover. A little suspicious, don't you think?

Once I was in the vent, I began to hear the footsteps Shanyn had been talking about. After a few more seconds, two whitecoats came down the left hallway and walked under us. With our luck, they would probably look up as well. With a bit of quick thinking, Taelyr picked up the vent cover and slid it through the hole, and then dropped it on the heads of the unsuspecting whitecoats. It made a dull thunk when it hit their heads, and before it could make a louder one on the ground, the whitecoats fell down like a couple of rocks and cushioned the path of the air vent cover, so it didn't make a big loud clang when it hit the ground.

The rest of us swung down from the air vent, landing beside the unconscious whitecoats. We continued down our original direction, left, and eventually stopped at a room marked, 'Experiments: Supernatural powers'. "Does that mean they're trying to control our powers? I thought that was spontaneous," Iggy said.

"Apparently they don't think so," Shanyn replied, "I think it's a glitch in our genes, so that when they're put together a certain way, we mutate. They're probably trying to figure out how we mutate exactly, and who knows? Maybe they succeeded."

I did have to agree with her. These whitecoats did have brains. Sick-minded, twisted brains, but brains nonetheless. I shrugged her theory off and looked at the door. There was a tiny window on the door, about half the size of a porthole on a hip. I peered in through the window and saw a computer in the room's corner, a row of about five cages on the left hand side, and a printer in the other corner. "Look out," Shanyn called, and her foot whizzed past my head into the door's lock, creating a loud bang, but breaking the lock, allowing us entry.

"That really wasn't smart," Madysen commented as Shanyn opened the door, "The whitecoats probably heard."

Natalca grinned evilly. "We can take them," she said, cracking her knuckles.

Madysen shook her head and followed Shanyn through the door.

Inside the room, we could see that only one of the cages was actually inhabited. A boy about sixteen years old sat in it, bent over, knees by his chest. He had dark straight hair, and when he looked up, we saw he had shining coal-black eyes. He was sturdily built, and looked to be around six feet tall, but I wasn't sure when he was crouched down. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, "What do you want?" he asked, sounding bored with us.

"Well, who are you?" asked Taelyr.

"My name's Aaron. What do you want?" he repeated forcefully.

Madysen looked slightly annoyed. "Can you tell us where Syarrah is?"

"Not here. She died the day after she was brought here."

"She _died_?" Madysen asked, the universal _what the hell_ expression on her face.

"They messed with her genes and her body couldn't take it. I'm one of the only ones who's survived having their genes messed with," Aaron responded, "They had my brother in here. He died along with Syarrah."

Aaron amazingly sounded completely neutral as he talked about his dead brother. He made his voice uncaring and cold. But he had to be lying about Syarrah's death. Madysen's Voice had told us to come for her.

_Message from Madysen,_ Natalca's voice appeared in my head, _she says that the Voice is now telling her we have to take this idiot instead of Syarrah. Why it couldn't have told us to take this idiot back when we thought we were coming for Syarrah, I don't know. But other than the tiny flaw that the person we're supposed to rescue is dead, the Voice hasn't been wrong before, so I suggest we listen to it. What do you think? _

_I think we might as well take him. If he's been messed with so that he has extra powers, he could come in useful._

_That's what I say. Same with Shanyn, Madysen, and Iggy. Congrats, your mind works the same as everyone's here. Except for Aaron. I can't read his, which greatly annoys me. And scares me. That's part of the reason I'm calling him an idiot. If I can't read his mind, I won't know what he's thinking, and I won't know if he's on our side._

Her voice went on and on. I really wanted her out of my head right now.

_Don't you try to kick me out of your head. I know you can't do that... _

Much to my amazement, her voice faded away. _Natalca?_ I called out in my now empty head.** (Ha ha, that seriously made me laugh my head off. I just realized after I typed it. Taelyr! You're boyfriend has an empty head. LOL.) **

_What? _

_I can block you out._

_What?! That's not fair._

_Tell me if you can hear what I'm thinking._

I concentrated and blocked Natalca out. Her voice wasn't in my head anymore. This was awesome. She wouldn't know what I was thinking every second of the day anymore.

Natalca glanced at me, confused. I gave her a slight smile. She sighed at me in annoyance, and then turned back to Aaron. "Are you gonna come with us or stay here?" she asked, a hint of anger on her voice.

Aaron changed his position so he was on hands and knees, ready to get out of the cramped cage. "I'll come," he said. "The people here are evil."

"No, really? What was your first clue?" Shanyn asked sarcastically.

Aaron raised an eyebrow but didn't respond as Madysen unlocked his cage. He sprang out gracefully and stood up.

He was tall. We had judged his height to be six feet while in the cramped cage, but he was taller than Iggy, who measured in at 6'4"** (If that's the wrong height blame Wikipedia. It said that was how tall Iggy was, and I wanted Aaron to be a freaking giant)** Aaron had to be 6'5", if not 6'6". He was muscled like a body builder and probably sixteen, like I had guessed earlier. His bulky build made it hard to tell his age for sure.

I realized I was staring and caught myself. I was tall, but Aaron was a giant. I used my presto-chango-now-my-hair-is-purple-power to make myself grow a couple inches, so I wasn't dwarfed quite so much. "Ready to leave?" I asked casually.

"Yup," Natalca replied, leading the way out the door.

We all followed Natalca out the maze of hallways in the mountain's interior. Eventually we came to the still-open doorway that led into the mountain air. "Just a sec," Iggy called, tossing a small, explosive bundle of fun down the hallway, "Okay, run. Fast. You've got twenty seconds."

When Iggy tells you that you have twenty seconds, you _get the hell out of there_, no questions asked.

We all flew away at high speed, Madysen and Shanyn grabbing Aaron's arms and dragging him through the air. In twenty seconds, we were at a safe enough distance to watch the magnificent explosion. There wasn't huge mushroom cloud, just a puff of smoke and the whole mountainside caved in. It was awesome. After the cave-in, a huge pile of snow slid down an outhanging cliff. The snow continued down the mountain, finally coming to a stop when the slope levelled out. It was awesome.

"So where are we going next?" I called out around me.

"That depends," Shanyn called back.

"On what?"

"On what our friend here does," she replied, indicating Aaron.

"Does?" Aaron asked.

"Yeah. In case you haven't noticed, this entire group can fly. What can you do?" Madysen asked him.

"I can run. Fast. About the speed of a cheetah," Aaron replied. I was pretty sure I could hear a note of smugness in his quiet voice.

Shanyn shared an evil glance with Madysen. I instantly knew what they were gonna do. They were only a few meters in the air. They would drop him in the snow and make him run to our hotel in Kathmandu. **(I have no clue how close that is to Mt. Kangchenjunga and I'm too lazy to go Google it. My computer thinks you can't type 'Google' with a lower-case G.)** "Don't," I told them.

"Why not?" Shanyn asked, "He's freaking heavy and I don't want to carry him to Kathmandu. I'm not an airplane, I'm a person. We brought a spare jacket. We can give it to him and meet him at our hotel."

Aaron looked insanely annoyed. Without any warning, he let go of Shanyn and Madysen's hands, dropping to the ground lightly. "Toss me the jacket," he said, "I haven't gotten to run in forever, and I want to now."

Well, if he wanted to run, I would let him run. I flew up high in the air, as high as I could before the air got to thin to continue ascending, and as I free-falled, I carefully pulled the backpack off of my wings and arms. By the time it was off, I still had another two hundred feet of freefall. I dove down to the ground, pulling up when there was about ten feet left, and hovered as I pulled the spare jacket from my backpack. I handed it to Aaron, who snatched it impatiently from my hand. Taelyr, who was hovering above Aaron, dropped down and thumped him on the head with her boot. "Be nice!" she told him angrily.

Aaron raised an eyebrow at her, "I'll behave however I please," he said testily, and took off running across the mountains.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Madysen spoke up, "Isn't he just a cuddly little ball of fun?"

"Oh definitely," Natalca replied sarcastically.

"Oh well, we can still fly faster than him," Taelyr said, "Which means we can easily beat him to Kathmandu.

**The end. I'm really sorry it took me so long to update, but I'm updating now, so be happy. I'll try to update faster. If any of you are reading my twilight/Night World Fanfic, it definitely won't be updated for a **_**very**_** long time. **


	10. Chapter 10

**Ummm. Yeah. I already know that I took forever to update, but you'll have to get used to it. I was sort of organizing the plot a bit more in my head, and that took a while. I also think I might go back and do some major revisions. Like some stuff I typed as just something to take up space but had no actual relevancy to the story. **

**Get mad at me all you want for not updating, but it won't help. I didn't start this chapter until the twelfth of December. So yeah.**

**I'm working on making Wyll a more important character in the story, you'll see why later. Although you may not be happy. Especially if you happen to be Taelyr…yeah, if you were Taelyr you would have a freaking spaz. That's all I'm gonna say.**

Madysen POV

By the time we got to Kathmandu, we estimated we still had another half an hour to kill before Aaron reached us. He may run as fast as a cheetah, but we could still fly faster. In the meantime, we could locate the piece of crap hotel we'd been staying at for the past three days. A tiny thing at the outskirts of the city, it was dirty, _definitely_ had mice, rats, all types of rodents, and would by no stretch of the imagination get a pass from American or Canadian health officials.

The only reasons we'd chosen this hotel was because 1) it was cheap, and we weren't sure how much money the MaxRide card had on it. And 2) the outskirts of a town was a good place to land if you don't want people to see your wings.

We flew circles around the outskirts of the city, eventually seeing the hotel, which was little more than a shack. Compared to the lovely Days Inn we'd stayed at in Oxford, it would barely pass as a communal outhouse. But we'd survived in the Schools, all of us, so I was sure we could survive in the Outhouse Hotel. I laughed quietly at the name I'd invented.

As we landed, we each tucked our wings in. Be them bat, bird or beetle, they pretty much all fold up against our spines. Shanyn led the way down the road to our hotel. We passed quietly through the unlit lobby, up the stairs, and into our room. It consisted of two single beds with dirty sheets, broken shutters, a rotting desk, and no bathroom. There was a public toilet and showers on the main floor. "Home, sweet home," Taelyr said sarcastically.

"Wonder what Aaron's gonna think," Iggy said out loud.

"Speaking of which," Taelyr said, "Someone should probably go hover in the air to see when he's getting here. He doesn't know where the hotel is."

Everyone groaned at the thought of escorting grumpy Aaron to our hotel. Eventually it came down to a rock, paper, scissors tournament, and I came in dead-last. How this happened, I don't know, I _always_ win rock, paper, scissors.

"Rematch?" I asked hopefully.

"Not a chance," Natalca told me.

I stuck my tongue out at her but continued out the door,

When I got outside, I walked back down the road to the little abandoned field where we took off, flung out my wings, and took off. **(At this point I seriously considered making Aaron go traitor on the flock, kidnap Madysen, and hold her hostage. But it didn't work in properly with what was gonna happen later. Just a bit of insight into the author's mysterious mind.) **I carefully hovered above the field, listening and watching for Aaron. I figured I would hear him before I saw him. He was the clumsiest runner I'd ever seen, his feet hitting the ground with so much force they sounded like a herd of elephants.

After ten minutes, which was less time than I'd expected, I heard a thudding noise a couple hundred meters away. I turned around to look, and saw a speck, growing bigger rapidly. As he came closer, he materialized into Aaron's form. I watched as he came closer, eventually reaching the outskirts of the city. "Aaron! Up here!" I shouted, flipping in circles to try to get his attention.

The thick jacket's hood must have blocked me out though, because he didn't respond, nor show any interest in responding. Instead, he paused for a second, looked around, and then started off at a speed that I assumed for him was a jog, but for anyone else would be a very fast sprint. Annoyed, I followed him, watching what the heck he was doing.

I followed him as he went down the street, and watched in amazement as he walked the exact route we'd taken to our hotel. When he entered the door, I quickly flew in the window to our room. "Where's Aaron?" Taelyr asked as I entered.

"He's coming," I told her, "He doesn't know I went after him. I called to him when I could see him, but he didn't hear me. He just kept going, so I followed him, and he came to our hotel. He should walk in the door any second."

"How'd he know where we were?" Natalca asked.

"I don't _know_! He just kept running. I'm asking him as soon as he gets in that door how he knew where to go," I said angrily.

Everyone nodded, and I sat down to wait with the rest of them. A few seconds later, Aaron walked through the door. "How'd you know where we were?" I asked him.

"What?" he said, looking at me like I was crazy.

"How'd you know which hotel we were in?" I asked him again, "You didn't see where we went, but you ran the exact route we had taken. How'd you know?"

"None of your business," Aaron said angrily, taking off his jacket and hanging it over the back of a chair.

"Yes, it is her business," Shanyn snapped, "If you're part of our group now, you have to tell us stuff like this. There's no secrets allowed."

Aaron looked angry at being told what to do by people that were three years younger than him. "I can follow a person's scent trail," he snapped, his voice still low and angry.

"Great, one more similarity between you and a Shifter," Taelyr said.

"What are the other ones?" Aaron challenged.

"We don't like Shifters very much," Taelyr replied.

Aaron's mouth twisted into a scowl, and his muscles flexed. He walked across the room in two steps and swung his arm around, punching Taelyr in the side of the head so fast she didn't even make a move to block it. Taelyr flew off the edge of the bed she'd been sitting on and landed on her back on the floor. She put a shaking hand to her temple and winced. I ran over to her. "Are you okay?" I asked her urgently.

Taelyr sat up. "I think so," she said, her voice shaking as much as she was. She stood up, lost her balance and fell back onto the bed behind her, "I think I just need a minute to sit down."

I nodded. As Taelyr rubbed her head, I got up and went over to the other side of the room where Shanyn, Natalca, and Iggy were spazzing out **(This computer thinks that 'spazzing' should be switched to 'spa zing')** at Aaron, while Wyll was struggling to not punch Aaron back. "What the hell was that for?!" I yelled at Aaron.

"If someone insults me, I have a right to get mad at them," Aaron said in his usual quiet, cold voice.

"That wasn't getting mad! That was almost knocking someone out because they said they didn't like you!" Shanyn shouted at him.

Aaron remained silent, his face completely indifferent. "Are you even going to apologize?" Natalca asked.

Aaron snorted. "Why?" he asked calmly, "She didn't apologize to me."

I lost it then. I punched Aaron in the nose with all the force I could without breaking his nose. Blood flowed from his nostrils, and he plugged his nose with one hand and pushed me down with the other. I landed on the floor, and when I got up, Aaron was opening the door to leave, probably heading to the downstairs washrooms to stop his nosebleed. Somehow it slipped my mind to tell him that Shanyn could have stopped it in five seconds. "Can we ditch him?" I asked no one in particular.

Just then, my brain exploded like a bomb. My hands flew up to hold my head as waves of pain shot through my skull, and I curled into a little ball. _No! You need him!_ My voice all but screamed at me. _Okay!_ I thought back_. Okay, okay, just leave me alone!_

After a final blast of pain, it stopped as quickly as it had come. "Are you serious?" Natalca asked, obviously having read my mind.

"Unless you want my brain to go splat, we have to take Aaron with us," I informed everyone.

A grumble passed through the group. Taelyr stood up and wobbly walked over to us. "I feel better now," she announced, "Just a killer headache."

"Oh gee, I wonder why?" Shanyn said sarcastically.

Taelyr stuck her tongue out at Shanyn. Yup, she was better. "I guess we should decide where we want to go next," I decided.

"Hmmm. I don't know. We haven't been to Australia or Africa yet, and the flock is in South America," said Iggy, "I vote Africa."

"Any idea where there's a School in Africa?" Wyll asked.

"I say we skip the Schools for a few days and just go on a site-seeing trip," Natalca suggested, "I wanna see some lions."

"I agree," I said, "I'd like to relax for a while."

"Can we leave first thing tomorrow?" Taelyr asked, "We could go on a safari in Kruger when we get there!"

"Kruger?" Shanyn asked.

"It's a wildlife reserve in South Africa," Taelyr informed everyone, "It's got lions and rhinos and hippos and wildebeests and lots of other animals."

Everyone agreed with our plan to relax for a week or so. "How do you guys want to get there?" Wyll asked, "We can't really fly anymore, since we've got Aaron. Even if he can run superspeed, we'd have to cross an ocean to get to South Africa, otherwise we'd have to go all the way around that little strip of land. The only thing I can think of would be to take a plane."

As always, everyone groaned. "Another addition to ways Aaron annoys us," Taelyr said.

In the end though, everyone agreed to take a plane, and Iggy went to the downstairs telephone to go book a flight the next morning and hotel rooms in Kruger.

After that, we all spread out to do what we pleased. Shanyn and Natalca decided to go explore Kathmandu, and dragged Iggy with them, while Taelyr, Wyll and I stayed in the hotel to plan out what we would do in Kruger. "Do they have any self-guided tours?" I asked, "That'd be better than going with a bunch of people."

"I doubt it," Taelyr said, "They probably wouldn't let people run around unattended in a place with lions. Common sense Madysen, you're lacking once again."

"Don't pretend you weren't thinking it too," I accused, "And we could kick a lion's but no problem."

"We should just camp out in Kruger," a voice said from the door.

_Joy,_ I thought, _Aaron has returned_.

Sure enough, when I turned around, the door was just swinging shut. Aaron walked through the door and leaned against the wall. Even the way he _moved_ was frustrating, as though the rest of the world was beneath his notice. Aaron continued on, "Like Madysen said, we could kick a lion's but no problem, so why not just camp out in Kruger? Then we get free self-guided tours as well. No messing around with stupid safari jeeps and warnings about keeping hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times. We could explore Kruger the way wildlife should be experienced."

As much as I hated him, as much as we _all_ hated him, his speech was so convincing. I felt myself drawn to his plan, considering it, and eventually deciding that it couldn't hurt. Before I could agree though, Taelyr did. Followed by Wyll, and then me. I saw Aaron smile subtly. Another show of his assumed superiority. "You have some blood on your nose still," I snapped at him.

The smile vanished from his face, and he reached up to scratch at his nostrils. Now it was my turn to smile.

**And that is where I shall end it! I'm really sorry about the amount of time it took me to get this chapter up, even if I barely have any readers, but guess what?!?! I have a plot!!!! The chapters should come a bit faster now.**

**Guess who the bad guys are gonna be???? The first person to guess right gets a chapter dedicated to them. And yes, ally, you can guess. Just cause I've changed it a little since I last saw you. You actually have to go back to previous chapters and **_**read the whole thing**_** to find out who. **


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